ELM

[Galen Meurer]

I had this difficulty as well and after some digging found this:
__________________________________________
ELM FAQ - error "Waiting to read
mailbox..." 

Possible reasons for this can be wrong permissions of the ELM binary: 

      wrong permissions (should be 2755) 
      wrong owner of the elm binary 
      wrong group of the elm binary (should be the same as your mailbox's
group) 
      wrong locking style for your system 
      wrong permissions of /var/spool/mail (should be 775, Slackware made it
755) 

This error typically comes up after a (re)installation of ELM. 
____________________________________________

My problem was the permissions of /var/spool/mail, but my symptom was not
quite the same as yours.  All users with the exception of root would get the
message you describe.  Perhaps your cause will be one of the others listed.

Best,
Galen Meurer
sitio at mindspring.com

At 02:35 AM 1/21/96 -0500, you wrote:
> I'm having a slight problem with ELM and ONLY one user account on my 
>machine.  Whenever i login under the acct "mntlcase" i get this error:
>
>Waiting to read mailbox while mail is being received:  attempt #0
>
> It attempts 7 times then gives me this error:
>
>Giving up after 7 iterations.
>
>Please try to read your mail again in a few minutes.
>
> I've looked everywhere for a lock file or something that would be 
>preventing it because i can still use ELM if i login under any other 
>account.  I have removed the mntlcase acct and recreated it and it still 
>doesn't work.  Also, is there a program like the old "userdel" so i can 
>delete users more easily than editing the passwd file and deleting their 
>home directory.  
>
>tia,
>  MC 
>
>