Q: Mail 8.1 Completely Broken

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore is not, in itself, a solution.

First, empty the Trash, if possible.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:

find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 \) 2>&- | wc -l | pbcopy

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.

The output of the command will be a number. It's automatically copied to the Clipboard. Please paste it into a reply.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions or are locked. This procedure will unlock those files and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Step 1

If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (triple-click, copy, and paste):

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.

The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)

Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.

Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

          Utilities ▹ Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:

res

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button

Select

           ▹ Restart

from the menu bar.

Hi Link,

My Mail 8.1 is not loading email attachments anymore form my exchange account. The headings and subjects are displayed, when I try to open them the gear wheel turns forever.

When I log onto the company OWS exchange site there are no #, pnc problems.

The code that was generated using the terminal is     2788.

I haven't proceeded further since I can not find a reference for that code. I looked on the apple developer website but was in over my head.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Brendan Hayes

Hello Linc,

sorry....!

same problem as Warren, can't send emails from iMac, can send emails from macbook, went back and compared settings, no use.

Have wasted hours on this already

My macbook is missing a couple of updates....   I won't be updating that in a hurry seeing it is still working.....

The Code is get is      766

Thank you!

Hella Wigge

Thanks so much Warren!

sadly unchecking those two automatic update boxes did not do the trick for me

plus my macbook pro is now on email sending strike also

thought i'd try this

GRAOctober 20, 2014

Reply

Hello there!
Close Mac Mail
Go and edit /Users/youruser/Library/MailData/accounts.plist

change Root -> DeliveryAccounts -> 0 -> UserAllowsInsecureAuthentication -> NO to YES.

but

can't work out how to get there

this is day two of fiddling with mail....starting to loose my cool....grrrhhh

Cheers!

mail had stopped sending also and then has just gone completely loopy on my iPhone 6
1970 & 2001 instead of 2014

no sender

no content

i give up, enough time wasted

not sure if this thread is still being monitored but i performed the test to determine test as posted by Linc on 18th Nov 2014. i have not been able to send emails with my exchange email address through mac mail, but all other functions are working correctly. the number was      401