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mistervalentin · Dec 30, 2008, 05:15 PM

I've held off on upgrading to Leopard, but it's been necessary now, so I gave it a shot. I wasn't told or instructed to back up Mail preferences or what have you, because I've done updates before without a hitch. Yes, it's perhaps naïve, but no where was the mention of this detail. Regular files were naturally backed up. Anyway, I installed Leopard and basically all went without a hitch. iTunes is fine. Folders & their contents are fine. Everything fine actually, EXCEPT for MAIL. Every single Email I ever received from my two accounts (a Mac.com and GMX.net account) are gone. What's more, I am unable to quit the program. Only force-quit works. Is there any way to recover the Emails? I read somewhere that I should re-create my Mailboxes .. does that mean i have erase the existing ones? If any one can help, I'd be very thankful.

ghporter · Dec 30, 2008, 07:12 PM

Welcome to our forums! What sort of install did you do? The typical OS upgrade advice is to do an "Archive and Install" which automatically backs up ALL your settings and data.

besson3c · Dec 30, 2008, 07:30 PM

Are your MobileMe and GMX.net accounts POP or IMAP?

mistervalentin · Dec 31, 2008, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Welcome to our forums! What sort of install did you do? The typical OS upgrade advice is to do an "Archive and Install" which automatically backs up ALL your settings and data.

Thanks for your response. Strangely enough, I wasn't asked what kind of Install I'd like to make. It just went straight through. I kept waiting for this famous option window that let me select which type of install .. to no avail. So, let's say it was the "default" install.

To the other person responding .. gmx.net is POP and MobileMe is IMAP I think.

thanks for your responses

tooki · Dec 31, 2008, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by mistervalentin

Thanks for your response. Strangely enough, I wasn't asked what kind of Install I'd like to make. It just went straight through. I kept waiting for this famous option window that let me select which type of install .. to no avail. So, let's say it was the "default" install.

Those options appear if you click the "Options..." button in the installer.

mistervalentin · Jan 3, 2009, 01:33 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Welcome to our forums! What sort of install did you do? The typical OS upgrade advice is to do an "Archive and Install" which automatically backs up ALL your settings and data.

Hello Glenn (Administrator) - happy new year!
Do you have any advice following the (most likely) "Default Install" I made when upgrading to Leopard? Should I just erase the two current (now empty) Mailboxes in the Mail program and recreate them from scratch? I'm afraid that if i do this, before exhausting all other options (advice given from you or others in the forum) that i will lose some Emails by starting from scratch.

many thanks for your advice

ibook_steve · Jan 3, 2009, 04:21 PM

MobileMe is IMAP. I don't know what GMX is. IMAP mail is all stored on the server. So just delete and recreate the mail account. All your mail should just get pulled from the server as normal.

Steve

jimd144 · Jan 4, 2009, 10:05 PM

There is a rebuild option for mail.

I would run that.

CharlesS · Jan 4, 2009, 10:11 PM

I would drag the home/Library/Mail folder and the home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist file to the Desktop. Then, launch Mail and set up the mail accounts. Finally, if you had any e-mails that were not stored on an IMAP server, you can use Mail's "Import" feature to bring over the e-mails from the old Mail folder which is now sitting on your Desktop.

JKT · Jan 5, 2009, 04:30 AM

I experienced this problem when upgrading my folks to 10.5.6 from Tiger this holiday and the only solution I could find was to 'nuke' everything (move the Mail folders and the Mail .plist from their default locations in ~/Library) and start from scratch by recreating the account. Fortunately it was IMAP, so nothing was lost as everything was still on the server but it did all have to be downloaded again.

If the posts at various forums I found were anything to go by, it was apparently a problem for many people at the time Leopard was released. I have to say that I was surprised to find that Apple haven't bothered to fix it in their six updates to 10.5... actually, scrub that, I am not surprised at all as Apple have consistently shown themselves to be terrible at fixing serious bugs in Leopard... the "it just doesn't work™ OS".

Big Mac · Jan 5, 2009, 04:57 AM

Not everyone has difficulties upgrading. It didn't cause any problems for my mail accounts, either IMAP or POP.

JKT · Jan 5, 2009, 01:08 PM

Not saying that everyone did (mine worked fine as well when I upgraded my own systems), just that many evidently did experience this issue (e.g. Apple support forums alone had lots of posts about it) and it is more than a bit remiss of Apple not to have fixed it yet when it is a serious issue. Someone a lot less Mac savvy than me would never have solved the problem and could easily have lost all their e-mail because of it, along with the ability to use Mail (e.g. my folks would never have been able to work it out if I wasn't there to do it for them).

Personally, I shudder to think what loops I would have had to jump through if their account had been POP...

bad cat · Jan 20, 2009, 01:12 PM

I reluctantly switched to Leopard recently too, after my Tiger keyboard encountered a full cup of coffee, and I had Geek Squad move my preferences etc. over from the Tiger's hard drive. Everything works fine except the new Mail, which -- despite a good network connection verified by the Connection Doctor -- won't send or receive, won't quit except by ForceQuit, and has deleted all the old emails as dealt with above. (The message-view screen doesn't automatically come up either, though I don't know if that's the norm for Leopard.) I've just been using my Comcast account directly online.

Any possible fixes I could try? Thanks.

ghporter · Jan 20, 2009, 07:11 PM

Originally Posted by bad cat

I reluctantly switched to Leopard recently too, after my Tiger keyboard encountered a full cup of coffee, and I had Geek Squad move my preferences etc. over from the Tiger's hard drive. Everything works fine except the new Mail, which -- despite a good network connection verified by the Connection Doctor -- won't send or receive, won't quit except by ForceQuit, and has deleted all the old emails as dealt with above. (The message-view screen doesn't automatically come up either, though I don't know if that's the norm for Leopard.) I've just been using my Comcast account directly online.

Any possible fixes I could try? Thanks.

Welcome to our forums!

So you bought a new computer? Which one? Which model was your Tiger computer? And why did you have Geek Squad touch either computer? (They are NOT a good choice to fix any computer...)

But anyway, more details please.

bad cat · Jan 20, 2009, 08:23 PM

Old one was MacBook with OS X, 10.4.11, Intel, about a year old. New one is MacBook with OS X, 10.5.6, Intel, I think from early 2008 (the closest I could get to replacing the old one.) Never had any problems with Mail in the old one. (PC before that, and I'm still getting oriented to Mac heaven.)

About Geek Squad, I'm a cyber-dunce as well as a klutz. Anyone affordable and fast that you'd recommend in the Denver, CO area?

Here's the background: When I was organizing final grades to hand in (part-time online university instructor), the coffee tsunami killed the motherboard. On its DOA diagnosis, I bought the replacement. The Geeks transplanted the old hard drive to the new machine, so I could finish the work quickly. (The Mail still worked then.) Then we switched the new hard drive back in, and they set up the old one as an external hard drive for Time Machine, and imported all the preferences, programs, and such from the old one. Could any of this have affected the Mail?

Thanks very, very much for any advice. (I've also got a keyboard skin now, and will keep an eye on possible overheating problems from it.)

CharlesS · Jan 20, 2009, 08:27 PM

Have you tried the advice I posted earlier in the thread? Try moving your Mail folder out of home/Library and onto your Desktop, and do the same for Library/com.apple.mail.plist (also in your home folder). Launch Mail, and set up your mail accounts, then go to File->Import Mailboxes and choose the Mail folder on your Desktop. If the messages are still in there, the import procedure should hopefully find them and re-add them to the new ~/Library/Mail which it should automatically create.

ghporter · Jan 20, 2009, 09:25 PM

Charles, maybe you need to provide more "step by step" guidance for bad cat; it seems that our new friend feels way too tech challenged to figure out how to get to home/Library...

bad cat, the "drive transplant" with a MacBook is really simple to do, and you could have done it with a little bit of guidance. Please don't give your money to anyone like Geek Squad without checking in here first to see if a task needs to be done by a pro or not.

bad cat · Jan 20, 2009, 10:44 PM

I had just assumed that there was an additional problem to be fixed with the Mail here, since it wouldn't even send and receive, but just moving the Mail file was enough! I'll tackle the importing of old files and emails as time allows. Many, many thanks! (I'm more than ever convinced of incomprehensible mysteries under the keyboard, though.)

Yep, the Geeks showed me how to switch hard drives, and didn't charge me for that (though they did for importing all the stuff). If you have alternate cyber-surgeons to recommend, I'd be delighted to use them next time I need help saving myself from myself.

Thanks again!