Mail Won't Launch After Upgrade to OS X vs.10.5.8

This happened to my wife before with another version of 10.5 and I believe I solved it with one of the steps in here (one of which I see is finding a mail app outside of applications0:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2486

I created a new account, and mail was able to open with the new account.

So... how do I fix the mail on my primary account?

Back in the original User Account, hold down the shift key while clicking to launch Mail. If that does not help, do the following: quit Mail, open Home/Library/Preferences in the Finder and locate the com.apple.mail.plist file, then drag it to the Desktop -- probably for later deletion. Relaunch Mail, and it should open as though New. Proceed to setup your email accounts again, and decline if prompted to Import. Mail should rediscover the existing account folders. However, it would be safest while in the Finder to make a duplicate of the Mail folder at Home/Library/Mail and drag that resulting copy to the Desktop for temporary backup.

Ernie

So here's what happened:
I dragged the .plist to the desktop, set up a new account, reopened mail, set up another account, the new account would not let me see all the old mail - and I have six accounts in mail. So I decided to do something else - I trashed the new account, dragged the new .plist from the Library, and put the old one back.
Strangely, that worked. I guess starting it up without the original .plist let it reset something, then putting it back worked fine. So far...

I am glad you have this working, but what I can't follow is this sequence: "I dragged the .plist to the desktop, set up a new account, reopened mail, set up another account . . ?" You could not have set up an email account without first having opened Mail, and once you did that, you would need to have proceeded to add all accounts that were set up previously?

Regardless, it is working so we shall take satisfaction with that.

Ernie

Sorry. it went something like this:

Moved .plist to desktop
created new account in system profiles
restart computer
start mail
create new mail account using old info
(couldn't see all accounts, so...)
quit mail
trashed new .plist prefrences
moved old .plist back into prefereces
restarted mail

works fine.

Hi Ernie,

I had the same problem that Mike Sullivan had. I was using sing 10.5.7 prior to updating to 10.5.8. Mail was working in good order while using 10.5.7? After the update mail would not open any windows, would not send or receive mail and would not open the preferences pane or quit from the menu.

I created a New User Account, and as that New User launched Mail and tried setting up my email account. However, the behavior continues in the New User Account, as well? Any suggestions? Thanks a lot,

-Nikhil

Hello,

If Mail will open at all, then in the menubar click on Mail and choose About Mail -- what version info, exactly, is reported?

If that is not allowed without crashing or freezing, then in the Applications folder Control-click on the Mail app's Icon (is it properly at the root level of the Applications folder) and choose Get Info -- what is reported, including comparing the date last modified to the date you updated to 10.5.8?

Ernie