the two commands i posted earlier were found at the below link. it appears a solution to the problem is found. i should have posted the link for reference. http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28321 --- On Thu, 1/7/10, Ken Allen <kc8tdw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: Ken Allen <kc8tdw@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: [ncolug] Re: webmail To: ncolug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 6:33 PM This is a now go, I have chmod 777 to the default_pref and it is squirrelmail trying to access this file, but it will not. On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 10:58 AM, nor thern <zboson2003@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: chmod 755 data folder touch /var/www/html/squirrelmail/data/default_pref