Can send but not receive email

Question

Level 1

8 points

Can send but not receive email

I have a new iMac using OS 10.6.2 which could send and receive normally until last month when it suddenly stopped receiving. I can send normally. At first I thought people weren't writing to me but I was astonished to find that my inbox at mobileme was filling up steadily with mail I hadn't known about. I have tried fiddling with the account settings to no avail.

Can anyone tell me how I go about investigating the problem?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Feb 9, 2010 12:48 AM

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Answer 1

roam

Level 6

13,631 points

Feb 9, 2010 1:57 AM in response to davidraub

Hello David and welcome to Apple Discussions.

Is mail coming in but you are not getting notified of it in the Dock?
If so, check Mail Preferences, General, and make sure Dock unread count is not set to None.

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Answer 2

Feb 9, 2010 9:06 AM in response to davidraub

I just started having this issue today on my MacBook Pro, and it's affecting all of my email accounts which include a mobileMe, gmail, godaddy, and a personal server account.

I can send emails out on all the accounts but after Mail Activity finishes showing the email count being received, nothing actually comes through.

I've completely shut down and restarted my Macbook Pro and have verified that the connections work via Mail Connection Doctor but still no success.

Is there a solution to fix this?

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Answer 3

davidraub Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 10, 2010 1:42 AM in response to roam

Thanks for your suggestion Roam. I checked the preferences and indeed the dock unread count was set to None. I altered this to all mailboxes and sent a test message but it looks like I still can't receive. Any more ideas. David

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Answer 4

roam

Level 6

13,631 points

Feb 10, 2010 1:05 PM in response to davidraub

Ah what a tease! It would have been a neat solution.
Being unable to send Mail appears to happen to a lot of people, judging by search results. There seems to be no single and so no easy 'just do this' solution.

Have a look at some of these posts.

Mail will not send - one particular remedy

mail won't send - various suggestions and the odd remedy

where you might glean just the right idiosyncratic adjustment to get your Mail working again.

If still no luck, if you search here, using 'Mail won't send" you will get a lot of hits, but you will need to wade through them as most of the posts are unsolved.

So those links will give you a few things to try. If you find the solution, could you post back what it was.

Message was edited by: roam

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Answer 5

tksalvo

Level 1

37 points

Feb 11, 2010 6:27 AM in response to roam

Your remedies seem to be with not being able to send, instead of not being able to receive. An iMac 24in with 10.6 using imap set up in November was receiving fine until yesterday when it stopped for no apparent reason.

The mailbox won't rebuild because there is only one mailbox. I have repaired disk permissions and dragged inbox info.plist to desktop but emails still not being received.

What are the correct step by step procedures to diagnose and cure this problem?

(I have had various Macs since 1984 but never had this problem before.)

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Answer 6

roam

Level 6

13,631 points

Feb 11, 2010 10:59 AM in response to tksalvo

Your remedies seem to be with not being able to send, instead of not being able to receive.

You're right, I got that confused with another post. My apologies to the OP for not being helpful.

tksalvo:
I don't know of a step by step approach. I suggest you start a new topic which will draw fresh attention to your problem.

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