this sounds most probably like a siple permissions problem; something is 
owned by the wrong user or group probably, and only root can touch it 
because the proper ownership or permissions are not right. 
my .02,
isildur

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000, Can Altineller wrote:

> 
> 	It seems that pine 4.05 can only open the inbox read-only.
> I got this package from netbsd packages dist, and I get:
> 
> 	[Can't open mailbox lock, access is readonly]
> 
> 	error for non-root users. everything seems to work right.
> 
> 	Anyone has ideas?
> 
> 	Thanks;
> 	-C.A.
> 
>