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Mail hangs when dragging anything into Dock Icon

Hi, I have an odd issue. I rarely use the mouse to perform drag & drop operations, as I use quicksilver most of the time, however, from time to time, I just "drag" pictures (screen captures) to the Dock Icon of Mail to quickly send 'em over.

I have mail open 99% of the time so it's running. Apart from the odd "duplicate message" that I got used to, something strange started happening lately. I found this out a few days ago but didn't do anything until today where I tried to find a solution (without success).

The thing is, I drag a picture (or many) or a chunk of text or whatever you imagine, to Mail's Dock Icon. Automatically one "empty" message is created (as usual since Leopard) and then, when the second window appears, it remains empty and spin ball appears. I have to force quit Mail.

Things I've tried:

- Reindex Mail (removing envelope). Not fixed.
- Reboot (of course!). Not Fixed.
- Try with Mail Closed or Opened in advance (same results).
- Read the logs: Couldn't find anything interesing and/or related.
- Submit crash reports: did it at least 10 times.

I've run out of ideas. It's very annoying because I happen to do that from time to time... :S

Other details I've found after further inspection:

Mail appears to enter into some sort of LOOP. Because RAM starts growing and growing until no ram is left (2GB) and therefore, Swapping starts. Taking a look at Activity Mon shows exactly that.

Any pointer that could give me a hint where to start?

I'd appreciate that, thanks.

P.S: I have enought HDD space left (7gigs), I've tried with a cold reboot, open mail, drag. Same result. I haven't repaired permissions (but will try, tho I have the feeling that it doesn't have anything to do).
I don't know exactly when this started, but for sure it used to work "a few days ago".

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro 15'' 2.0, Mac OS X (10.5.2), iPod Touch 8GB, Fast Trak Pro USB Audio IF, Guitar Rig 3 Audio IF

Posted on Mar 24, 2008 10:12 AM

49 replies

Apr 2, 2008 9:08 AM in response to son of babyboomer

son of babyboomer wrote:
My Mac run Tiger 10.4.11

I don't know if this is a Tiger issue, you are the first that I've heard. Did you install Safari 3.1?

It hang when I want attaching file ( move files to the mail app. icon or attaching by original way)

Despite the inconvenience, what we're reporting here doesn't seem to happen if you attach the file after the mail has been created.

I use only plain text with my signature.

The type of signature really makes no diference (as far as we've been able to see). What you should try is changing Mail -> Preferences -> Composing -> Use PlainText and put Use Richtext.

It really annoy me that I cannot sent the attached mail by this way.

You're not alone.

😉

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,776 points

Apr 2, 2008 9:10 AM in response to Martin Marconcini

No hang. All works fine for me.

Apr 2, 2008 9:16 AM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:
No hang. All works fine for me.

So, having Safari 3.1, using PlainText, having a Signature is not enough to Hang it?

(when you drag an attachment to the dock icon, that is).

:S

I thought that "everybody" had the same issue. I'm clueless now. What do "we" have that you don't ? 🙂

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,776 points

Apr 2, 2008 9:28 AM in response to Martin Marconcini

Ok, so I re-enable the ToDo plugin to see if that had anything to do with it.
Guess what happened. Nope, didn't hang. It also didn't duplicate the message window.
I even tried it on my MBP (Intel vs PPC). Still no problem.

Any other plugins or mods to Mail or Safari?

Apr 2, 2008 9:31 AM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:
Ok, so I re-enable the ToDo plugin to see if that had anything to do with it.

I was going to ask for this 🙂

Guess what happened. Nope, didn't hang. It also didn't duplicate the message window.

LOL, then I'm not sure if the ToDo plug in had anything to do with this :S

I even tried it on my MBP (Intel vs PPC). Still no problem.

Weird.

Any other plugins or mods to Mail or Safari?

I have LetterBox and Spamsieve but removing them had no effect. (It was the 1st thing I tried).

On Safari I only have Inquisitor.

How about you?

Apr 2, 2008 9:42 AM in response to Martin Marconcini

It works now, I don't know what exactly answer to solve this problem but it backs!
After I read all comments, I go to preference
- tick the signature "off"
- switch "Message format" to "Plain text"
It's work. all your guys comments save me.
After-while I want to rechecked If these preference things was the problem.
The answer is nothing, I back to preference and
- tick the signature "on"
- switch "Message format" to "Rich text"
Everything fine, I can whatever I have done before.

Thank you all your in-depth experiments. Especially you Martin, Big Big hug.
Encourage you guys find the truth solution.

My safari is 3.0.4

Message was edited by: son of babyboomer

Message was edited by: son of babyboomer

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,776 points

Apr 2, 2008 9:40 AM in response to Martin Marconcini

I have no mods for either. I had AdBlock on Safari, but found it too restrictive and uninstalled it a while ago.

Apr 2, 2008 9:50 AM in response to Barney-15E

Well, I guess I'll have to go all the way back to a Vanilla Safari (removing Inquisitor) and removing my Mail Bundles again. (But I have tried this). Just to play on the safe side.

Can anybody confirm if it's using Inquisitor and/or Letterbox, Spamsieve or something? Or list any mods you may have on Safari or Mail.

If it's all about a MOD we'll find out.

I guess that you have fixed your problem Barney 🙂 Thanks for your help!

Just to make sure that your "double" message doesn't happen again, try dragging a few attachs and using mail a few days to see if it "returns". (I had it fixed for one day once, but then it "came back").

:S

Thanks again.

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,776 points

Apr 3, 2008 1:12 PM in response to Martin Marconcini

Iiitttt's Baaa-aaack.

I turned the ToDo plugin back on and everything was fine, but I did restart this morning, as I installed the new iTunes, Quicktime, Frontrow updates. Turned off the ToDo plugin and everything works fine, again. Still no hang.

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,776 points

Apr 6, 2008 7:19 PM in response to son of babyboomer

I think this is all linked to AppleScript in some way. I was trying to help out on another thread building an Applescript that would automate mail redirection. When I was trying to make it work, it started the double-message gig.
Many of the automation tasks in Mail are handled via Applescript, so the mysterious re-appearance of these issues could be tied to Mail having run an Applescript in the background to accomplish some task.

Apr 7, 2008 7:33 AM in response to Martin Marconcini

I've had the same problem for a while; I hadn't connected it with the Safari update, but that must be when it started. I confirm that changing composing prefs to Rich Text solves the problem, but I'm not sure I want to do that permanently.

Kirk

Apr 7, 2008 7:53 AM in response to Barney-15E

Yeah but I guess we can't fix that. Apple will have to 😟
I have the To-Do plugin disabled so far. Most of the time I get Single Windows now. But I couldn't be sure if "after a while" this doesn't change.

As to why it hangs for you and not for us, remains a mystery. A friend of mine brought a brand new MBP yesterday, will test it there (secretly) 😉

Apr 7, 2008 7:57 AM in response to Kirk McElhearn

Kirk McElhearn wrote:
I confirm that changing composing prefs to Rich Text solves the problem, but I'm not sure I want to do that permanently.

Me neither, but I just use SHIFT-CMD-T (switch between RichText/Plaintext) much more often 😉

Martin.

Message was edited by: Martin Marconcini

Apr 8, 2008 2:14 PM in response to Martin Marconcini

Thank you for researching this. I switched my mail to "Rich text" and now it's attaching just fine. 🙂

~ Happy Camper

Apr 8, 2008 2:39 PM in response to shelberta

You're welcome 🙂

By the way, today Apple sent me the confirmation mail:

"This is a follow up to Bug ID# XXXXXXX. After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering. This issue has been filed in our bug database".

Not all is lost.

😉

Mail hangs when dragging *anything* into Dock Icon