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Mail stops responding in Yosemite

When I open Mail it invariably fails to show the content of the selected message in the preview pane, and then locks up needing to be force-quit. This happens almost all of the time now. On the 3rd or 4th attempt everything is fine - until the next time.


I have rebuilt the mailbox from scratch. No joy


There are no viruses

The hard drive is brand new

Internet connections and mail servers are fine

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Aug 19, 2015 1:11 PM

Reply
23 replies

Nov 1, 2015 5:29 AM in response to Eric Root

I have been having the same problem. I receive mail fine on my other devices on the same network. Just my macBook periodically, for a few days at a time, doesn't receive mail. I can send OK. I've been reading the advice given on this thread and don't understand why I should have to go through this.


Why doesn't Apple fix the issue or even reply to the threads about the issue?


macBook Pro Retina

os 10.11.1.1.

imap/comcast

Nov 1, 2015 10:51 AM in response to gammalinda

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.


Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.


Mail Feedback


Or you can use your Apple ID to register with this site and go the Apple BugReporter. Supposedly you will get an answer if you submit feedback.


Feedback via Apple Developer

Feb 9, 2016 4:21 PM in response to Eric Root

For what it's worth, I have the same problem. Mail works fine if I open it in safe mode -- with the shift key held down. But if I don't do that it will seem to open but won't do anything. All inboxes and all folders show the same list of messages.


If I open Mail's activity window, I see all kinds of things happening when it opens in safe mode. But otherwise, I'll see a long list of processes that seem to be frozen with no activity at all. If I click the stop button on any process, the line is greyed out but it never disappears. If I then open in safe mode, I'm okay, but if I open normally again, the same frozen list of processes reappears.


Anybody have any ideas?


Many thanks in advance --

Steve

Feb 22, 2016 1:33 PM in response to Steve Cohen4

Steve, I think you're reporting a different problem than this post started out about.


You seem to have multiple accounts configured to use Mail, and each Inbox shows the same new and old mail messages, and each account shows the same folders of mail? As though it were one account with different names, but all showing the same thing?


This may be a Kerberos situation. Are you using Kerberos?

Feb 22, 2016 2:11 PM in response to Phil Brown2

Phil,

Thanks for responding. When I open Mail.app normally (not "safe mode") it often hangs within a few seconds. When that happens the activity window shows many instances of "opening mailbox" which never go away. No indication of which mailbox in activity window. When that happens Mail stops properly showing mail lists and message contents. You can click from one mailbox to another, but that has no effect. Thus the symptom that all mailboxes seem to have the same contents. In other words, I think that's a symptom, not the problem. I'm not using Kerberos, as far as I know.


As suggested by bthomp2420 on this page, I did this: "Try deleting the contents of ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCloudHelper and then kill the com.apple.iCloudHelper process in the activity monitor."


I thought that had worked because I was able to open Mail several times without a hang. But subsequently the problem returned and I'm now assuming that the success was just random luck, because the problem has been intermittent.


I've been using Mail for a couple of weeks now by holding down the shift key when I launch it. That always works, but I have no idea why, and no idea what to do to solve the problem. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.


Thanks again --

Steve

Mail stops responding in Yosemite

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