Q: Spinning Color Ball

What Mac do you have and what version of OS X?

How long have you waited?  Could be trying to sort something out.

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Seems odd.   Just gone off the deep end without reason.

guesses

1) try safe boot

2) file system corruption  -- run disk utility to check out file system

3) messed up preferences -- set up a new user to see if mail works.

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try safe boot

  Shutdown your machine.  Hold down the shift key.  Poweron.  Wait awhile Wait awhile while you harddrive

is being checked.

    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

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I suspect disk corruptions.

verify & repair your startup drive

To verify & repair you file system on the startup drive, you will need to run disk utility from you installation DVD.

This article  will tell you how to get to disk utility.  Once in a disk utility, you can go and attempt to recover the disk.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

To repair your startup drive, you will need to run disk utility from your startup DVD.
Mac OS X 10.4: About the utilities available on the Mac OS X 10.4 Install DVD

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2055

How to run disk utility from your startup DVD.

1. Insert your  startup DVD  into your reader.  Power down your machine.  Hold down to the c key.  Power on your machine.  This will bootup your startup DVD.
2. This will bring you to a panel asking you for your language.  Pick your language.



 

3. You you come to the Install Mac OS panel.  Do not install.
4. Click on Utilities menu item.  This will give you a pulldown list of utilities.
5. Click on the disk utility.
   
6. You are now in disk utility.  Pick your disk.  Click on repair it should be on the lower right of the panel.
7. Once the repair completes successfully, you should update your permissions.

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Create a new account and see if mails works. If it works, suspect bad preference.

Create new Account

blue apple > system preferences

clicks on accounts icon

click on lock icon if locked. 

enter logon password 

click on + icon ( left side of screen just above the lock icon )

after creating new account, you need to logout of your current account.

blue apple > log out ... current count name ...

log on to new account. see if problem goes away.

if it has gone  away rename finder preference ( Not sure of name ) ... reboot.