*******Edit2. Fix now available for this error. See post by birchy below********
I don't read of many people complaining about this recently which might mean that I am the only one with the problem, or the only one not to have found a solution till now. I thought I would post it anyway, because the solutions are out there, but they seem to be all over the place, this at least puts them into one topic.
First of all you may as well update checkgmail:
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checkgmail --update
During the process it will ask you if it is OK to update the binary giving you a Y/n choice. Type a capital Y here because a lower case y usually doesn't work. When it has finished updating it will start up and then ask you to confirm your username and password - again and again and again - until you tire of it and press cancel. I suggest pressing cancel first time up!
Now go here http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.ph ... tid=738663 and download 'checkgmail.patch' (if you haven't got it already). Save it somewhere safe and never delete it you will need it again in the future I guarantee. (This nonsense has been going on for years, why the developers can't just incorporate the patch I don't know? ). Anyway now apply the patch (assuming you have saved it in Downloads the code is):
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sudo patch /usr/bin/checkgmail /home/yourusername/Downloads/checkgmail.patch
If it tells you there is no such command install the 'patch' utility from synaptic.
That will make checkgmail stop constantly asking you for your username and password. That part of the fix has been widely known for ages, the next part not so much.
The problem with checkgmail now is that it will never work in 'preview' mode, ie it will let you read a few words of the message but no more, now we want to correct this problem. This is the solution.
First run the command:
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sudo apt-get install libsexy2 libsexy-dev
Next run the command:
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sudo perl -MCPAN -e ‘install Gtk2::Sexy’
Obviously you have to have perl installed for that to work (if you haven't it is in synaptic, but I think you will have). Be careful with perl commands because if you copy and paste any extra white space along with the command it will throw up some spurious error message and not run (in fact you may be better to type these commands rather than copy/paste them). It will also ask you a couple of questions, you can just press 'enter' here for the defaults except for the one asking about how you want to authorise downloads/installs for this one you type sudo followed by pressing enter.
I also ran:
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sudo perl -MCPAN -e ‘install Crypt::Simple’
In my case it said that was up to date, but it is probably worth doing anyway.
Finally you can start checkgmail and it should work properly, it did for me anyway.
Checked on LM14 Cinnamon and Ubuntu 12.10 Unity.
It is a ridiculous performance to have to go through to get a simple mail checker working properly, but that is what I had to do anyway.
