For the past few weeks my Mail has intermittently stopped automatically checking. Sometimes it does and then I might be an hour or so without any mail so I check manually and there will be about five or six messages.
I've tried changing the preferences on and off but I can't think what else I can do.
Anybody any ideas, please?
MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.4), 8GB RAM, 500GB HD
Can nobody offer any advice, please?
I am having the same problem.
In the absence of any creative suggestions, I am hoping that the problem may go away with Mavericks. đ
One possible cause is if there is a message which is for some reason unpalatable to the mail server which prevents Apple Mail from getting the file and subsequent files from the server. For example, a message could be too big.
Good suggestion, so I had a look on the server, but no mail there.
Also, I have noticed that there is nothing in the Activity window, so for some reason the check is not being initiated.
That's not the case for me either as I clear out my mail server manually several times per day.
Well, I guess if this were happening to me, I'd wonder if there were some incompatibility between Apple Mail and the mail server. Maybe double-check the mail settings against what the mail server recommends. Also, maybe watch the "Activity" window (Window, Activity) to see if Apple Mail is actually checking for mail and, if so, what is happening. Also, maybe look at Console (Utilities folder) to look for any error messages which might give a clue.
I don't understand how you could deduce that.
If I click the 'Get new messages' button, Mail checks for new messages and if there are any, they are downloaded. Surely, automtically checking mail is merely Mail hitting this button for me to all intents and purposes.- so why would it be a server problem?
Another thing to try is to double-check/reset Mail preferences. Maybe delete the Mail preferences file.
This only started happening to me recently, it is intermittant, and when it happens there is nothing in the Activity window, so my suspicions are:
- a problem with mail extensions
- a consequence of some OS X problem
But it is odd that only 2 people have reported having the problem.
Good suggestion, but deleting com.apple.mail.plist resulted in all my mailboxes disappearing, so I quickly restored it!
Presumably there is a less drastic form of reset?
If you suspect some third party software conflict, you can test this hypothesis by starting up in Safe Mode and testing.
If the Safe Mode doesn't solve the problem, try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.
I am having the same issue .. for the past 3-4 days. Mac mail will check for mail only when it feels like it, but not the scheduled every 5 mins. Sometimes it won't check at all. I'm missing a lot of important work emails because of this. If anyone has a solution (besides calling Apple), that would be great. đ
I am having the same problem and it appears to have started recently as it has only come to my attention in the past several weeks. No changes to my system other than the standard OS updates. Using Mail V 6.6 which appears to be the "Friday, September 13, 2013 4:17 PM" version. I've tried all the usual tricks to shake off the issue but it has not gone away.
Same here, Dreiss. Same Mail version, same symptoms. Hey, at least you can sleep in the knowledge that you're not alone. Humor aside, it's a royal pain in the butt - made even more so by the understanding that Mail is an integral part of OS/X, and therefore it can't be reinstalled by itself. The classic support response of "let's restore the OS" makes me cringe every time I hear it - talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
Let's hope it's something the Cupertino gurus are aware of and addressing, but I'm not holding my breath. It's only been happening lately, so I suspect a "fix" went bad somewhere. Ho hum...
Mail not automatically checking
