thunderbird local mail stuck

[Dave S]

Hello,

I have thunderbird setup on my wifes machine with a 'movemail account' so I 
can read my 'root' mail which is automatically directed to user 'vanda'

server type : Unix Movemail
server name : localhost.localdomain
username : vanda
local directory : /var/mail

With the boxes checked for reading new mail on startup and every 10 mins 
selected.

I never get mail :( even when i know there is mail waiting. I can start 
thunderbird - zip, I can ctrl-shift-t to check my accounts - zip. 

However if I manually right click the account and 'get messages for account' 
it reads the system emails in perfectly.

This is not ideal - does anyone else have this problem ? or an idea how to 
solve it ?

Dave