Cannot send MobileMe mail from Mail in Lion

The process I advised is a workaround, but it isn't using a non-Apple/MobileMe SMTP server. The issue isn't with the actual SMTP server. The issue appears to be caused by inabality to save correct SMTP server settings when there is a conflict between pre-existing manual MobileMe IMAP configuration in Mail.app and the MobileMe account's "Mail & Notes" attempted re-configuration in "Mail,Contacts,Calendars" accessed from  > System Preferences ( which is new in Lion ).

The ability to auto-configure CalDAV, iChat, and Mail with simply a check mark from one simple account setup in "Mail,Contacts,Calendars" is a great feature.

I don't believe this issue occurs for people that have not previously had their MobileMe IMAP account configured in Mail.app before upgrading to Lion.

It is impossible for me to believe that Mac OS X engineering is not aware of this issue. I assume it will be addressed in Mac OS X Lion Software Updates in the near future.

What this process does is removes the old configuration which is in conflict with "Mail,Contacts,Calendars" System Preferences, then reconfigures the account via the intended route of configuration in Lion which is by placing a check mark next to "Mail & Notes" for the MobileMe account configured in  > System Preferences > Mail,Contacts,Calendars.

I don't see a problem with it being a workaround Jeffrey - so long as Apple make it a temporary one. It's a more sophisticated workaround than setting the outgoing mail server to "none" such as I have been using.

I think that you may be correct regarding the comment that it only affects legacy users of the IMAP/mail configuration.

I run a Mac mini and an MBA on Snow Leopard too. They will be staying that way for some time. BUT the shift to configuring iCal in a different way is playing havoc with the Calendar sync of all three machines - to the extent that I've given up on it for the time being. It will sync my iphone calendar but only when hard wired accross to the MBP.

I agree with you - it must be a wide issue and Apple's engineers must be aware of it and working on the fix. It should have been a pretty obvious one to spot though. One of the benefits of mobileme was to get iCal syncing.

I'm an optimist - things will work out, but at the moment the "lion" upgrade is causing me no end of headaches - I use Akai software that has Omni suite embedded into it - all of which I've suddenly lost the use of. This is not old software but the SL upgrade!! (unfortunately the Outliner in there is still on a PowerPC platform). Virus Barrier X6 is screwed (even the Lion version). For the first time since Panther I'm struggling to see the benefits, and as for the upcoming loss of my iDisk - a backwards step, as it's something that I use - a lot.

In respect to only being able to sync calendar hardwired: It is not possible to sync MobileMe Calendars ( CalDAV calendars ) hardwired. iTunes only recognizes "On My iPhone" calendars on iPhone, and "On My Mac" calendars in iCal.

If you're able to sync the calendars via iTunes tethered sync, then that means you're adding events to the wrong "set" of calendars on the iPhone.

I had the same symptoms as many here. I tried the suggestions given and it didnt work for me.

However, I did something else that made it work for me.

1. I removed the MobileMe acc from Mail.app

2. I logged in to to the admin site for the apple id: appleid.apple.com and changed the password for my appleid

3. I rebooted my Precious MB Pro

4. Went to System Preferences -> Mail, Contatcs etc enabled Mail for the IMAP MobileMe and gave the new changed password

5. Went to MobileMe as well in SystemPreferences and set the new password (guess that's optional)

6. Opened Mail.App and Voila! it worked. Maybe I had to give the new pw there too, don't remember.

Peace & love

* edit: Though, when sending mail, it takes abnormally long to get the mail sent, so there is still definately some problems with the mailserver.

Message was edited by: Godsgifttohumanity

So today the selecting "none" fix fell over as the "none option disappeard from the box - I'm pretty sure it was after an iphone/itunes sync again - although as Jeffrey rightly points out it should affect things. I'm beginning to think that it does though.

I've tried Jeffrey's workaround - deleted MM, closed by force quit, etc to the letter and now I get several options appearing for the outbound server- none of which seem to work.

How do we get someone from Apple to look in on this? It's just not good enough as Mail is a pretty important app to people like me who are trying to run a business on it. I'm not averse to trying to find a fix for things,but this is a) eating up so much of my time, b) offering occasional (false) respite c) incredibly frustrating and d) making me begin to believe that a proper fix needs a change to the OS that I'm going to have to resort to gmail for a while.

I have a couple of questions for Jeffrey 512 if he's around:

When I go to mark "mail and notes" on the rhs with my account on the lhs, I find ical already checked, should i leave this checked? I have presumed so.

How did you leave the outgoing mail server - does it reflect you account name?

Hi, so I have been following all of the various work arounds on this post that I started some time ago. I actually spent about 2 hours on the phone at one point with a very pleasant Apple Tech who helped me to get my mail to sort of work, uncheck none, then in the new message select the outbound server that does not say Mobileme the so called Ghost Server. This seemed to work for a while but recently stopped working. So now I am just selecting the outbound server in the message for a gmail account that we have and that works fine as a temporary way to keep messages going outbound. If you do not have one of those accounts, they are free, very quick to set up and you can pretty much design the name the way you like or pretty close. Not the best solution but a good brute force solution that will for sure work until the people at Apple actually fix this ridiculous problem.

My first workaround was to use the gmail as the outgoing server but found that it was sending duplicate mails so I dropped it and had to find another way. I've got mail sending again after yet another set of problems today. I've used a combination of Jeffrey's and GGTH's - ie a reinstall of mobileme combined with a password change.

Who knows how long this fix will last? Needs an Apple fix -FAST.

Awesome! Thanks for the tip!!

Worked for me too, thanks 😎

Thanks Godsgifttohumanity, worked great!

Thank God.

😉

Been digging throught this thread. Having same problem. For the last few months it only affected my MacBook, now it's hosed my iMac. I've "fixed" my MacBook three times now. Grrrrrrr.

Is MobileMe mail going away with iCloud? If so, time to jump ship cuz they won't fix this.

Hello? Apple, are you there?

no, they are not there. i took mine in monday, and they ripped out everything email related and reinstalled it. lost about half the old emails, etc. it did not rebuild everything.

it worked in the store, then failed when i got home. i restored most of the mail from the time machine. it is working now, but very slow. took 4 minutes to send a test message containing 4 letters.

i felt for the genius guy, as i am sure he was sick of trying to fix the unfixable. but ***.