Mail Hangs

Lost some important mails with this issue.

Had OSX 10.4.8 upgraded to 10.4.10.

Before upgrade did repair permissions and used Cocktail to clean caches etc.

Tried to rebuild the mail folders but folders appeared but empty in each case.

Quit and reopened then folders dissappeared.

Tried another technique: dragged mailo folder to desktop and started again.

Draged mailboxes back into correct location

Same deal.

Tried import again and got messages in Import folder. But when opening got:

"The message from X concerning “subject” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it.

But going to server it was not there anymore!

Arrggghh!

So, I was reading the following document:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25717

and this got me thinking that it might be a font issue. So I followed the instructions and looked at the font I have set as my default font, in my case Trebuchet MS, using Font Book (in your applications folder). Anyway, I noticed that there were two copies of "regular" installed. I disabled one of them and then I was able to respond to an email that was hanging all morning!!!!

So, look at your fonts for anything that looks suspicious like corrupted fonts (see document link) or duplicate fonts, etc....

I will report back if my Mail problems comes back again.

My wife and I bought iPhones this past weekend and tried to activate them on a Black MacBook (latest model I believe, bought Feb 07). Had to update iTunes and the OS to 10.4.10 from 10.4.9. We have separate accoutns on the MacBook. I was able to activate my phone with no problems. My wife had problems so she activated he phone on our old G4 PowerBook. Well, now she is having email problems using Mail on the MacBook. Can receive email but gets an error sending email (something like Can't use SMTP server). However, I am able to send email on my account with thru the same server. Any ideas?

I think this fix is working.... I haven't had any problems with mail all day!!!! this is a welcome change.

If anyone tries this please report back and let us know if solving the font issue was the problem.

Hi,

I'd like to add my story of woe & complaint to this list, in hopes that Apple will LISTEN AND FIX THE PROBLEM!! I switched from a Mac Powerbook (about 3 years old) to this new MacBook Pro in August, and I HATE MAIL now. I don't know if this is due to the system upgrade, or the Intel processor, or what, but when I switch from one folder to another (say, sent mail to inbox) I get a blank folder and a little clock by the name of the folder and then Mail sits there for minutes at a time before showing me the list of messages. Used to be, if I needed to check a message that I had sent, I just clicked the sent folder, sorted the list, found the message, and returned to the inbox, all seamlessly. Now, I cringe each time I have to switch folders, knowing that I'll have a 'hang up', and I'm perpetually cursing my machine. I've NEVER had this issue with a Mac (& I'm not a 'new user' I've owned a Mac since 1987!!)

I'm wondering if this also has to do with having had to switch to an IMAP account--the old one was a POP account (the whole switch was due to a job change). Has anyone on this forum had better luck using POP versus IMAP? Or, put differently: did mail ever work seamlessly and easily with an IMAP interface, or has it always had hangups? I hesitate to reconfigure to POP, partly because the IT at my new job frowns on it, and partly because I worry that if I add yet another account to Mail (I currently have two, one from my old work email address and one for my new) that it'll work even more slowly (that is, get even more confused).

Help, Apple!! You are alienating your base!!

W

"Hi Fellas

I solved mine. NOT by the Network order change, though I tried that.

1) I rebuilt every single one of my 35 mailboxes. (as in Mailbox > Rebuild). Then restarted.

2) I ran OnyX and, using "Cleaning", deleted all the caches under every tab. Restarted each time where recommended.

he whole Mac is running faster, Mail is almost there- lets give it 98%. It is interesting that the 5-6 emails that I was having the original Forward and Reply All problems with were still "corrupted" and I could do nothing with them except delete them. Now things are going quite well, except for Reply All , which occasionally is still taking its own sweet time for 10 seconds as opposed to its previous instantaneous result (for replying to 2 particular people).

Cheers from downunder "



i would like to confirm that rebuilding your mail inboxes works.
i did have to delete the original messages that i had an original problem with. (same as laurie)

Rob

I have been having trouble with Mail recently. I have reinstalled it, rebuilt the mailboxes and many other of the suggestions here.

The weirdest part of all this is that when Mail opens (with or without an internet connection) at the top is gives me the following messages:

First "Gathering Children from disk for local account"
Then "Resuming interrupted append"

Sometimes it completes these processes and sometimes it just crashes.

Any ideas????

Thanks
Rod

I'll add my 2 cents worth from another 3 year old PowerBook G4 with mail problems recently.

Several times recently I've had to Force Quit mail.

In another post I voiced problems with smtp. I can't send and can't change the settings.

I too have been having terrible trouble with Mail - although I can definately trace it back to when I upgraded to 10.4.10.
Mail regularly crashes or hangs with the 'spinning beach-ball of death'.
I also have hundreds of messages in my inbox which I cannot delete. I've tried clicking Delete, dragging to trash, clicking the delete button in either groups or individually. The messages seem to delete but then when I return to the inbox there they are! Rebuilding the mail box does nothing.

I have checked my Network settings and my ethernet is at the top of the list and the only active port.

The whole long and tedious episode is driving me nuts and I've even considered (god help me!) using Entourage as another solution.

Just my 2p's worth.

cheers
Lisa

Hi Lisa,
I finally got fed up and have switched to Entourage. I can't stand the hang ups, waiting forever to switch from one mailbox to another, and having to force quit on a regular basis.

I have NEVER had this problem with an Apple computer. I'm amazed that it hasn't been fixed by Apple yet!! This seems to be an ongoing problem that is somehow related to 10.4.10 or the Intel processor or something....

Entourage is taking some getting used to, but at the very least it's fast and furious (the way Mail used to be....sigh....)

WA

Mail is also terrible for me. I used Entourage for a long time but would rather use mail because I hope to upgrade to an Intel Mac. I don't want to buy Office 2008 just for Entourage (I hear that Entourage 2003 is very slow on an Intel Mac).

I tried Thunderbird and really liked it, but the current version is not indexed by Spotlight (they say version 3 will have spotlight indexing). Meanwhile, Mail is really awful. I don't know what they did to break it.

Same trouble to me.

I changed to Apple a couple of years ago. And I was so funny that I bought one for home and force my wife to chage too.

But, a couple of weeks ago, during weekend, my Mail suddenly begans to have an extrange behaviour. Sarts up and begins to syncronize all myy accounts (I use a lot because of my job and my hobbies). Most of them IMAP accounts. But simply doesn't finish. Gets hunged.

I thought it was some stupid trouble with my accouts so, I moved the Mail folder to a safe place. And recreate all the configuration (I could do this because I use IMAP accounts and I left the messages of POP accounts in the server). For sometime this worked.

The worst work was recreate the RSS feeds (find and subscribe one on one).

But today, I've opened my laptop and the problem was there again. So, I hope not to be forced to change to Thunderbird or another mail client because I like some features of Mail and I used to it despite of its limitations (like no archive or export useful tools).