Kids email app only works in Admin acc

Question

Hi
(Warning: Tediously long message alert! I'm sorry about the length of this post. It's only about an email program for a 6 yr old, but I've spent so long trying to get it to work that I'm determined to make it work now!)
iMac G3 DV400 - OS X 10.3.9 - 320MB RAM
I have downloaded & installed a child friendly mail application called Mail4Kids ( http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/email_chat/mail4kids.html ).
It's a good application but I can only get it to work correctly in my Admin account. (& obviously I don't want to give my 6 yr old an Admin account!)
The symptons are:
Admin acc - On start-up Mail4Kids downloads any mail waiting on the server and then deletes it from the server. (I have checked this 'before & after' using Safari to look at my daughters webmail). Replying & sending of mail works correctly.
My acc (Standard, No Limits) - On start-up Mail4Kids starts to download any mail waiting but only downloads the first message waiting. The download arrows continue to 'revolve'. Checking webmail via Safari show that the message has not been deleted from the server. The message can be read and replied to. Sending of mail works OK.
If I click on 'Check Mail' the first message is downloaded again. If i click a second time the first message is downloaded a third time and I immediately get an error dialog box that states: "An exception of class NilObjectException was not handled. The application must shut down." Clicking the 'OK' button causes the application to shut down.
My daughter's acc (Simplified, Simple Finder) - Same as my account.
I have searched the net but found very little regarding Mail4Kids. I searched again using 'An exception of class NilObjectException was not handled'. Most of the hits (for other apps) seemed to point to a quicktime issue or locked files.
I opened Mail4Kids and Activity Monitor & did an 'Inspect' - 'Open Files' in the Admin account and my own account. The open files were the same in both cases. I have pasted them at the end of this message. Using terminal I checked the file permissions on each path. They were all rwx for owner (Admin) and r_x for group and others.
I then did a 'Sample' of the process in Activity Monitor. The results were significantly different for the Admin account and my own account. I better not post the results here as they are quite long.
Can anyone help?
Open files: (Admin acc & my own std account show the same (apart from users/ path))
/ (/dev/disk0s10)
/dev/null
/dev/console
/dev/console
/ (/dev/disk0s10)
0x01a00b7c file struct, ty=0x3, op=0x317820
0x01a00b58 file struct, ty=0x3, op=0x317820
/Applications/Mail4Kids.app/Contents/Resources/Mail4Kids.rsrc
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fram ework/Versions/A/Resources/HIToolbox.rsrc
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fram ework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/Localized.rsrc
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/H IServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/HIServices.rsrc
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.fram ework/Versions/A/Resources/Extras.rsrc
->0x01c50564
->0x01adb860
/Users/theors/Library/Preferences/DerekSoft.Mail4Kids/Mail4Kids.dat
/var/tmp/SCDynamicStoreNotifyFileDescriptor-17923
->0x01015dc4
iMac G3 DV400   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   320MB RAM

Answer 1

Using terminal I checked the file permissions on each path. They were all rwx for owner (Admin) and r_x for group and others.
Let me start by saying I've never even heard of Mail4Kid, but the above seems to indicate that the program needs to write some temporary files but can't since the program is owned by admin. Try changing the owner of all the files in the Mail4Kids application (it's really folder) to your username, (easily done via the command line with a 'chown -R' command) and then try to run it from your standard account. If that works try changing the ownership to your kids' username and then try running it from their limited account. HTH.
-NifflerX