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Corrupted POP account crashing Mail in Leopard

Hello all. After a full day of triage yesterday, I found that a single POP account is crashing the Mail app every time it tries to retrieve new mail. None of the other POP or IMAP accounts have any trouble sending or receiving when tested separately.

I had current backups for everything, so now I'm looking for guidance to repair / replace the damaged POP account.

If I delete that account or simply trash that mbox, is there a way to re-import that mbox from the backup copy? Will it fix the problem, or is it likely that either there's a corrupted message in the existing, downloaded mail OR a corrupted message on the server that's causing the problem?

Also, If I delete the offending POP account, which contains thousands of archival emails, will importing from the backup mean I have to wade through years of old email again? Now the messages are distributed across their respective projects in sub-folders. I'd prefer to have the archival material stay where it is.

As you may be able to tell, I'm trying to fix this with a surgical strike. I've had no trouble with Mail until yesterday, so I'm hoping to fix the problem with this one account and not waste another entire day.

Thanks for any pointers on this one,

Tim

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 1, 2008 8:47 AM

17 replies

May 5, 2008 5:57 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

"My guess is, without having specifically asked or having a full report of the contents of your xxxx.mbox folders, is that you have a small mess of leftover files."

Hi again. Last note to say thank you again. After re-creating a separate IMAP account and shifting the original POP account to offline status, I haven't had any further problems. I think you're right about the accumulated debris left over from multiple OS shifts (Ocelot, Jaguar, Tiger, Leopard, etc.) and no clean-up utility to police the leftovers.

I had most of my archival email in MailSteward, so I'll take this corrupted mailbox as a cosmic reminder to close the gap between the last archive and the current material.

Thanks again for your advice and willingness to help the Mac community.

Tim

kenny_f

Level 1

0 points

Jul 29, 2008 12:17 PM in response to Timothy Elliott1

I had a similar problem over the last few days. Spent TOO many hours trying to debug it. Noted console message said:

7/29/08 2:59:15 PM Mail[3089] Seen Messages: error "The file “MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3” could not be opened because it is not in the right format." in -[SeenMessagesManager saveChanges]

Found this thread, found and deleted MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3, everything works again.

Thanks.

FWIW, the app does not "crash" per se. If you look at the Activity Window, it hangs somewhere during download. Other functions are still possible, such as changing rules and such, so technically, the app is still running. It has to be killed rather violently, however, to make it go away.

Also, for Apple diagnostic folks (Ernie?), the problem surfaced after Mail indicated something was wrong with something and insisted on rebuilding all the mailboxes. Whether it was causal or not, I don't know.

cheers,

--ken

Corrupted POP account crashing Mail in Leopard