Corrupt user account - Need to move mail

mcsdtech

Registered
Hello all,

I'm a computer consultant/network administrator that is new to the Mac world and could use some help. I have a professional photographer client who purchased a new MacBook Pro with OS X 10.6.2.

ViewNX from Nikon would not work. After many days troubleshooting, Nikon Support suggested uninstalling ViewNX, creating a new administrative account and reinstalling under the new account.

It worked, Yippee, All is right with the world!...Well almost.

Now we have to move her mail and AddressBook from one administrative account to the new account ON THE SAME MACHINE. These last words are of extreme importance. None of the instructions I find work in this scenario.
1. copy ~/Library/Mail to the same folder of the new account.
2. copy ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist to same folder of new the account.

Those instructions work if you move them to a new computer, but if you are on the same computer the permissions are remembered and it doesn't work.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Dan
 
Select the files after they are copied and Get Info from the File menu on the menu bar at the top of the screen to assign ownership and permissions. (Or do so from Terminal with the chown command to change the files' owner.)
 
Thanks BuggyNSlow,

I should have thought of chown, but I keep forgetting OS X is *nix.
Silly me:o

What I did that worked:
1. copy ~/Library/Mail to a flash drive with a FAT partition.
2. copy ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist to a flash drive with a FAT partition.
3. login as new administrative user
4. copy ~/Library/Mail from the flash drive to ~/Library/Mail of the new user account.
5. copy ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist from the flash drive to ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist of the new user account.

Bingo, working mail on new account.
 
You could also make her old account have administrator rights and see if the software will install on it then.

Other than that you can use the Terminal to actually clone her entire user profile into the new account.
 
Thanks TitanShadow,

The old account was an administrator account. Nothing we did with that account would allow the ViewNX software to run properly. It seemed to install fine, but when you ran ViewNX it always gave an error and wouldn't run. Because of this issue we didn't think it wise to clone the account and end up with the same issue.
 
No, I agree. I would copy the data folders first for Music, Documents, etc... There is a setting somewhere that is screwing you up. The above instructions for what folders to use should work but you may want to see if you can have Mail itself do the export. Failing that copying the entire ~/Library folder over should work too. Back up the existing Library folder first in case your problem setting exists in there somewhere you can go back to data that works.

Exactly what error is it again?
 
I don't remember the exact error. It was more like a core dump that got sent to Apple every time you started the program. As I mentioned above we actually have it working now. I copied the Mail folder and the mail preferences file. Made sure that worked. Then as you just suggested I moved the Music, Documents & Pictures.

As far as I know, the system is working fine now and I have a happy, productive client again.
 
I am having the exact same problem with ViewNX and was given the same advice by Nikon. I recently migrated from an iMac G5 running Leopard to an new Intel iMac with Snow Leopard. I suspect the migration from my old system is the cause of my problem, and have search in vain to find something causing the conflict with no luck. I have thousands of emails that I need to move and have one question. I also noticed there is another folder that contains all the email attachments. Did you move this as well and if so, are you able to see the attachments from the parent mail message?
 
ppappas,

Can't help you will that. I don't remember working with the attachments folder. Also the computer has been wiped and restored by a local Apple store, so I can't check it for you. Sorry.

I would suggest copying the folders to the new machine/profile and seeing if it works. I think you've got a pretty good chance it will.

P.S. The Apple techs said my clients old version of Photoshop was the cause of her problems. We never had any problem with Photoshop running on the new computer, but they talked my client into purchasing the newest copy, as well as, erasing the computer and restoring it to factory default settings.
 
Thanks, I also have an older version of Photoshop CS and it seems to work OK in the new user account while still allowing ViewNX to work as well. I don't do much with Photoshop anymore and now use Nikon's Capture NX2 to work on my NEF photos. Maybe I will try removing all Adobe stuff from ~/library to see if that make any difference. I would rather not switch to a new user account as it will be a big PITA.

Thanks again,
Peter
 
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