mail not working

Eric and Linc,

Thanks for the replies.

I've had Connection Doctor open, and it reports no errors - nothing on the server goes red.

I've also watched all the attempts to do somethng with mail in Mail's Activity Monitor, and this doesn't report any errors.

I've signed into iCloud, and watched a message which was sent flash (a number 1, as in 1 message) next to the Inbox at the top of the screen. The message doesn't appear, I just get a flash to say one was passing through! It doesn't appear in the trash or anywhere else; it just never arrives.

Interestingly, I also get this same flash activity on my MacPro, but I get no sign of life on my iMac.

Linc,

Thanks again. Negative on the iCloud rules - I've set none - I don't use iCloud, but get all my email via Mail. Well, I used to!!

Apple, for what little they've said, haven't indicated that this problem lies in either Mail or iCloud. However, after 21 or so days, this is getting to be less funny. To hear Apple's people tell it, they've got everyone and his dog working on this one problem. Yeah!

It may not be of any help, but it needs saying: if I was the CEO of Apple this would've been fixed 6 weeks ago, instead of which, as a pathetic sap of an Apple usual (you know, one that currently only has a MacPro, an iMac, two MacBook Pros, a MacBook Air, five (yep) iPhones in the house and six (yep again) iPods) I guess it's just fine to treat customers this customer this way.

I've been using Apple computers since the early 1990s, and to be frank expected better - well, at least something would be good, from a company that advertises itself as being up there with the best. They promise that they're fixing this problem and will call back, instead of which all I get is a stone wall of silence.

I'm guessing that nobody from Apple ever reads this sort of posting, so maybe I'm just talking to myself.

Finally got a fix. After much fiddling by Apple's engineers, turning off all the functions in mail, and then turning them back on again, one at a time, to see what happened, it appears that there was (still is?) a conflict between Mail's letting mail through and junk mail filters. Once I turned off the junk mail filters, Mail worked OK.

Apple were also able to restore all the mail I'd "missed" in the 5 weeks or so that Mail wasn't working.

As a postscript, it's fair to point out although I've not turned junk mail filtering back on, I'd really like to - for obvious reasons. I'll muddle along with a somewhat lame Mail and see if I can live without these filters. That said, it's part of the program, a part that worked just fine for the last couple of decades, so why it should stop working to the extent that it stopped all mail is an itch I can't scratch. It should work but doesn't.

I did the reset thing a long time ago. It just doesn't make sense to turn it off.

Junk mail filtering is supposed to do just that, filter junk mail. If I turn it on for, say, 50 junk mail senders, then my mail gets stopped, and I'm back to square one.

I can't believe that I'm the only one in the world with this problem. I want junk mail filtering to dump all mail I tell it is junk in the round bin; painfully it is hopelessly inadequate. Apple don't care. I see where it's been suggested that Apple don't monitor these discussion groups, so what's the point. Then again, if I am the only one in the world with this problem, where is the value in Apple caring, ergo they don't. Their engineers on the help line are no help: they're on a clock, and as soon as I go over their limit, I get the very quick, "I'm going to pass this to a senior engineer" and they scoot off to a coffee break or whatever. The next level of help isn't much better, but they talk a somewhat better talk. The end result is still the same; no result.

Everybody is guessing at the obvious answer which everybody else guesses at because that's the standard response, nobody has come at this from any angle that treats it as a problem: saying that I should use junk mail filtering will make the problem go away is circular reasoning, as the problem lies within that part of mail I'm trying to use.

Maybe because Mail is free with the operating system then they're not going to waste any money on one person's problem. Shame of it is I've used Apple for 25 years; I'd never recommend their customer service because this (and the the other major problems I've had) are still there - repeating iCloud Session Password requests, for example. I could go on, but realise I'm the only one left in the universe!!!!