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Mac Mail Unexpectedly Quits for no reason

Hi - yesterday my mac mail started to play up and I am not sure why? I have not done anythin differently - but totally randomly, not when I am doing anything or if I am just browsing folders in Mac Mail the application quits. It has just done it again this morning which is the 4th time since yesterday afternoon.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I did a search on the forums for this and found people had this problem when starting up - I have no problem starting up. Another thing I have noticed recently is that when I do switch between folders it takes a while to load the preview (longer than it used to) so not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Also - because of this any advice on how to back up my messages in mac mail quickly and easily would be great!

Mac Mail Version 2.1 - MacBook Pro

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Aug 30, 2006 2:08 AM

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Posted on Aug 30, 2006 6:56 AM

Hi Tarquin.

Verify/repair your disk (not just permissions), as described here:

The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?

When an application crashes (i.e. quits unexpectedly), the system writes information about the state of the application at the moment of the crash into a log file. That information is called a crash report and it makes troubleshooting much easier. In order to find and paste the relevant part of the crash report here, proceed as follows:

1. Open ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Mail.crash.log. The whole Mail crash log appears on a Console window (you can also open that file with any text editor). It may contain many crash reports. We only want the latest, which is located at the bottom of the file.

2. Look for a line that begins with "Date/Time:" as close to the bottom as possible, and another that says "Thread N Crashed:", where N is a number. Select everything from the "Date/Time:" line to the lines immediately following "Thread N Crashed:". Copy that text and paste it here. Do not post the whole crash log, and do not include anything beyond the lines immediately following "Thread N Crashed:" either, just the relevant part.

Take a look at the following thread for examples of what a crash report looks like:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=466701

any advice on how to back up my messages


Mail stores most preferences and all account settings in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. Everything else, including all your messages and mailboxes, is stored within the ~/Library/Mail/ folder.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user's home folder.
4 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Aug 30, 2006 6:56 AM in response to Tarquinthe3rd

Hi Tarquin.

Verify/repair your disk (not just permissions), as described here:

The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?

When an application crashes (i.e. quits unexpectedly), the system writes information about the state of the application at the moment of the crash into a log file. That information is called a crash report and it makes troubleshooting much easier. In order to find and paste the relevant part of the crash report here, proceed as follows:

1. Open ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Mail.crash.log. The whole Mail crash log appears on a Console window (you can also open that file with any text editor). It may contain many crash reports. We only want the latest, which is located at the bottom of the file.

2. Look for a line that begins with "Date/Time:" as close to the bottom as possible, and another that says "Thread N Crashed:", where N is a number. Select everything from the "Date/Time:" line to the lines immediately following "Thread N Crashed:". Copy that text and paste it here. Do not post the whole crash log, and do not include anything beyond the lines immediately following "Thread N Crashed:" either, just the relevant part.

Take a look at the following thread for examples of what a crash report looks like:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=466701

any advice on how to back up my messages


Mail stores most preferences and all account settings in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. Everything else, including all your messages and mailboxes, is stored within the ~/Library/Mail/ folder.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user's home folder.

Aug 30, 2006 7:15 AM in response to Tarquinthe3rd

Reinstall the Combo Update for the type of machine and the version of Mac OS X you're using (which I'm not sure what it is because your profile said Mac OS X 10.4.7 first and it says Mac OS X 10.4.6 now):

Mac OS X 10.4.7 Combo Update for Intel

Take a look at the following articles for guidelines on how to properly install system updates:

Troubleshooting installation and software updates
Installing software updates

Basically, you should verify/repair the startup disk before installing the update, and no applications should be running while installing it.

Mac Mail Unexpectedly Quits for no reason

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