can't add a new account to mail

kurt188 wrote:

Based on what you describe, I have to ask: What is the total capacity of your hard drive, and how much free space do you have left? That information could indicate the source of the problem.

HD capacity 500 GB nominal

Free space 400 GB

It's also possible there may be something wrong with your Mac's hard drive, so you should boot from the Snow Leopard disc, then use Disk Utility to Repair Disk and see what it reports, repairs, or if anything can't be repaired.

I did it, and DU says the HD "appears to be OK"

kurt188 wrote:

Okay, the hard drive looks fine, so I see two things left that we could do:

1. You can delete your regular user account and make the test account your normal one, then restart the Mac and see if the long startup problems continue.

2. Whether or not the startup problems continue, you could choose to do a full erase of your hard drive (if you have a backup) and then reinstall Snow Leopard from scratch.

It's up to you which one you want to try.

First, I'll try #1 and see how it behaves.

Then, if it goes the same way, I won't have an alternative but #2 (BTW one more time: I've already done it twice since I got the iMac home in late June, 2011).

Thank you Kurt; I'll let you know what is the outcome.

Regards

kurt188 wrote:

BTW one more time: I've already done it twice since I got the iMac home in late June, 2011

You erased the hard drive and then reinstalled, or you just reinstalled? Something's not right on your system; maybe you have too little RAM, maybe it's something in the install itself. But if you erase the hard drive and then reinstall, that would at least eliminate any remnant of the old stuff as a possible cause of the problem.

If you have to do that, the first thing you should do right away is update to 10.6.8, then restart your system (assuming it doesn't make you do that anyway).

Yes, something is not right in my system.

I've erased and then reinstalled the OS, both times but, it seems it didn't eliminate any old stuff.

I had then 4GB RAM installed in the computer (I now have 8GB RAM).

I have always had OS X 10.6.8

kurt188 wrote:

Let me know how it turns out with Option 1. If you do have to reinstall, be sure to Secure Erase the hard drive (zero it out, which will take hours) and then reinstall when that's done.

Thanks, I'll let you know once I'm done with option 1.

As a matter of fact, that is exactly how I've done it before: zero out all data, gone out for lunch somewhere, took a long walk, came back, and it was still erasing 😁

Regards

kurt188 wrote:

Let me know how it turns out with Option 1. If you do have to reinstall, be sure to Secure Erase the hard drive (zero it out, which will take hours) and then reinstall when that's done.

Hi Kurt,

It took me sometime to get to where I am now si as be able to report to you on the issue. Sorry to have kept you waiting 😝

The story goes like this:

1. I was reluctant to follow your recommendation and delete my OS X account; I called Apple Care instead and explained all that was going wrong with my computer (I've already listed the problems before on this thread.)
2. I was instructed to reinstall the system and to only use Apple applications, no third party applications because some of those may be the source of the problems I was experiencing, and use the computer normally for a week or so and report back
3. I did as instructed after zeroing all data in the HD, and no problem like the ones I was having before occurred again.
4. Reported to Apple Care after using the computer for a bout a week, and went over the Mail/Gmail issue while having my computer connected to Apple Care's site so as to let them see what was going on.
5. I was instructed to create an IMAP Gmail account (even though I insisted that it had to be a POP account.)
6. The Gmail account was created and I was able to see all messages in that account.
7. The discussion with Apple Care was finished after this and I was not able to send a message from Gmail, nor to make it the default account, just as it happened before; the same problems with the certificate, prompts to enter password, etc. (BTW, I couldn't see the certificate in Keychain access so that I could delete it.)
8. I deleted the IMAP Gmail account and tried to create a POP account, without success. Everything is as described on 7, above.

So, now I am exactly at the same point I was before, although the OS seems to be working fine. Maybe I should not ask for more than this.

What can you tell me now?

Thanks a lot.
Regards

kurt188 wrote:

the same problems with the certificate

What certificate are you referring to?

The certificate is the one Apple Mail looks into to see whether it comes from a trusted source.

I added a screen shot on my reply to one of your previous posts (refer to my reply of Jan 29, 2012 3:52 PM) that shows it.

I deleted the IMAP Gmail account and tried to create a POP account, without success.

Have you tried setting up a test account and creating a Gmail POP account? If not, give that a try.

I have done better than that; it could probably have been serendipity but, in the end I've got my Gmail account in Apple Mail.

When Mail jumped up saying that it could not trust the certificate, I clicked on "show", then found that I could override Mail's refusal to accept it by indicating something like "always trust it", and presto! I now finally have Gmail in Apple Mail 🙂

Thank you so much for all your help; best regards