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Eug · Oct 24, 2011, 09:40 PM

I installed Lion in September on my iMac and then IMAP'd my Yahoo! Mail account in Mail.app on September 9, 2011.

Now a whole bunch of mail messages have the same September 9, 2011 date, regardless of when the mail was actually sent. I checked on my Yahoo! account via the web interface., and they do not have that same issue. The dates are correct.

So, I deleted my entire IMAP account in Mail.app today and started over. However, I get the exact same problem. A ton of my messages that are older than Sept. 9, 2011 have that same September 9, 2011 date. What's even more odd is that the message headers for these messages have the right date. So, I'll have messages from 2005 and messages from 2008 right next to each other when I sort by date, which of course makes the date sort ordering completely useless.

Furthermore, I just tried the IMAP on my MacBook Pro Mail.app, and I get that same date. WTF?

Why is this happening, and how do I fix it?!?

besson3c · Oct 24, 2011, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

This is really p!ssing me off.

I installed Lion in September, and then IMAP'd my Yahoo! Mail account in Mail.app on September 9, 2011.

Now a whole bunch of mail messages have the same September 9, 2011 date, regardless of when the mail was actually sent. I checked on my Yahoo! account via the web interface., and they do not have that same issue. The dates are correct.

So, I deleted my entire IMAP account in Mail.app today and started over. However, I get the exact same problem. A ton of my messages have that same September 9, 2011 date. What's even more odd is that the message header has the right date.

Why is this happening, and how do I fix it?!?

Have you tried rebuilding your mailbox within Mail? Sounds like an OS X Mail bug.

Eug · Oct 24, 2011, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Have you tried rebuilding your mailbox within Mail? Sounds like an OS X Mail bug.

Yes, tried rebuilding. Always get the same date. That's why I deleted the entire account and started over. Same problem.

Could deleting the prefs solve the problem? If so, where are all the prefs kept? But that still doesn't explain why my MacBook Pro is getting the same date.

The only thing that's common between them is that my iMac's copy of Lion is a direct backup of my MacBook Pro's copy of Lion (clean install), but I set up Mail on my iMac before I set up Mail on my MacBook Pro.

Since then I've deleted all the Mail IMAP accounts on the MBP, ready to start over.

Insider · 02:01 AM

After finding this thread and checking my own sent folder in Mail, I discovered that I seem to be having the same issue. I am on iCloud however. The dates are also OK when logging in from the web interface, so I know it's isolated within Mail.

I read about a solution on MacRumors that amounts to rebuilding the Envelope Index file. Here's the link to an Apple Support document outlining how to do just that: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h.../en/14019.html

I'm going to give this a try tomorrow and see how it goes.

Eug · Oct 25, 2011, 01:36 AM

Hmm... Is it possible to sort by date sent in Lion Mail? I don't see the option. That doesn't solve the underlying problem but it could be a good workaround for the time being.

Insider · 12:05 PM

I rebuilt the Envelope Index file this morning and that did in fact solve the date sorting problem for me.

After following Apple's instructions and then opening Mail, I received a Mail dialog warning that said I had a damaged Envelope Index file. The dialog advised me to quit Mail and then open it again. After doing so, Mail pulled my messages from the server with correct dates!

Hope that helps Eug and others who might be experiencing the same issue.

UPDATE: The instructions in the Apple Support document are not explicit about which Envelope Index files to delete. There are in fact three that should be deleted as part of the rebuilding process. The specific files are "Envelope Index," "Envelope Index-shm" and "Envelope Index-wal." By making sure you get all three files you won't receive the damaged Index file warning that I originally did.

More about this is discussed in a Macworld article here: http://www.macworld.com/article/1631...#lsrc.rss_main

Insider · 08:20 PM

This issue seems to have come back. Many of my messages in the Sent folder are appearing in the preview column with the current time that Mail re-syncs with the server. These messages also have the date field stripped from the headers. So for now the Rebuild Envelope Index file fix is a no go.

It looks like it might be an issue with the widescreen layout. When I switch to classic layout and sort by Date Received Mail seems to be displaying the dates properly. I am still missing date headers when I open certain messages, but when I click "Hide" in a message window it actually shows me the date field. This seems like it might be a bug in Mail after all.

Can anyone else confirm this?

Eug · Nov 21, 2011, 10:49 PM

I solved the problem... by switching to Thunderbird.

Well, the problem isn't gone completely, but it's mostly gone now. A handful of old messages have today's date. However, it's WAY better than my results with Mail.app. I suspect it's a date detection error, but if so, then Thunderbird is much better at detecting dates than Mail.

In Mail a huge chunk of messages across multiple folders and subfolders have that September 9 2011 date. This makes searches in Mail impossible to navigate. In Thunderbird, a few have today's date in a couple of subfolders, and then one folder has a bunch of them. However, luckily the dates are not a big deal for that one last folder. Searching for all the other folders works great because the messages are properly sorted by date.

I'll take it.

Plus, it seems Thunderbird has better search. Can I search all the messages in all Mail folders simultaneously? I tried a couple of times and it didn't work. I could only search folders when I switched to Yahoo! IMAP, but maybe I was just doing it wrong. However, I can do it in Thunderbird, although to search all the folders simultaneously means manually using a search dialogue box.

besson3c · Nov 21, 2011, 10:59 PM

Welcome to the world of non-shitty email clients Eug!

Eug · Nov 21, 2011, 11:27 PM

Heh. I hear ya.

BTW, I tried rebuilding that one folder with the group of incorrectly dated messages in Thunderbird, and the same group of messages continues to have the wrong date. So suspect it is indeed a date detection issue.

However, I don't know why, since the To: section in the header seems to have the same date format as the messages that get imported correctly.

X-Apparently-To: [email protected] via 206.190.37.204; Thu, 12 Apr 2007 03:08:01 -0700

besson3c · Nov 21, 2011, 11:52 PM

Some IMAP servers such as Cyrus consist of a message per email + database index file that can sometimes become corrupt. On Cyrus rebuilding mailboxes can fix the sort of issues you are describing. There is no way to do this on the client side, but you could regenerate a new index by doing an IMAP sync from one account to another, then back again.

Doc HM · Nov 22, 2011, 05:00 AM

So what email clients do you recommend then Bes? It seems the best solution is merely the best of a flawed bunch. Entourage is a non starter, Outlook is barely any better, Mail has many issues with search and dates, Sparrow looks good if a little lightweight and Postbox is too confusing for casual usage. I can't believe Thunderbird i the best bet?

besson3c · Nov 22, 2011, 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by Doc HM

So what email clients do you recommend then Bes? It seems the best solution is merely the best of a flawed bunch. Entourage is a non starter, Outlook is barely any better, Mail has many issues with search and dates, Sparrow looks good if a little lightweight and Postbox is too confusing for casual usage. I can't believe Thunderbird i the best bet?

What makes Postbox too confusing? That's what I use... It is basically Thunderbird on steroids, with more Mac-specific features.

Mail has many issues period.

Eug · Nov 22, 2011, 09:30 AM

What are the other issues with Mail?

What are the other benefits with Postbox? I see that Postbox is $30.

Big Mac · Nov 22, 2011, 10:52 AM

I've never seen a bug like that in Mail. It sounds like yet another thing Apple screwed up in Lion.

besson3c · Nov 23, 2011, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

What are the other issues with Mail?

What are the other benefits with Postbox? I see that Postbox is $30.

Mail issues/shortcomings:

- Performance in general with large mailboxes is ass
- IMAP servers have limits of concurrent connections, Mail opens a crapload of connections needlessly which might stall/impact connectivity
- Lack of multiple identity support
- Lack of folder subscription support
- I've always found it to be rather quirky and buggy

Other Postbox advantages or things which may entice (in addition to being a remedy for all of the above). I haven't cross-referenced this list against Mail's current feature set as of Lion, so just consider this a list of stuff. Several of these things might be in Thunderbird:

- social network integration
- Dropbox integration
- GMail integration
- a bunch of search features
- organizational features such as assigning topics
- favorites bar
- multi-tab support
- mail archiving
- redirect/resend support (not sure if Mail supports either)
- add-ons (including Enigmail, which provides PGP support)

mrrwthird · 12:08 PM

Hi,

I have this same problem with future dates, every mail that is received has the date 7/9/2037.

This is in Lion mail.app as well as in SL! An account on my iPhone shows NO problem. Thunderbird neither (no, 'use thunderbird then' is not the correct answer ;-)

Funnily, one or two emails that were received yesterday displayed the correct date from the beginning.
And on another iPhone, it also shows 7/9/2037.

If I delete the Envelope-files, they are rebuilt and all dates are correct! only after new mails are received, those new ones are again from 25 years in the future...

If I setup a brand-new user and configure a new email account there, all emails after a certain date (about a week a go) have this 2037 date. Mails before that have the right date.

All files on the mailserver filesystem (os x server 10.6) have the correct timestamps!

Does anyone have a clue how something like this can happen? On the one hand it looks like mail.app, but that it also happens to an iPhone points to a server issue?

(about a week ago, I moved the mail server datastore from a directly attached drobo to an nfs root-mounted NAS. timestamps, users, permissions were preserved in the move. so this date-thing happens since then. but all mails that come in have correct dates. so it does NOT look like a server issue?)

EDIT: I disabled the mailaccount on my personal iPhone, re-enabled the mail account, and lo and behold, mails since last week also display the 2037 date! This is getting REALLY funny....

Eug · Mar 10, 2012, 01:12 PM

The error persists.

I just tried reconfiguring Mail with my Yahoo account info again because Thunderbird is giving me headaches. I get the same 2011-09-09 date on a whole bunch of my emails.

Eug · Apr 20, 2012, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

I installed Lion in September on my iMac and then IMAP'd my Yahoo! Mail account in Mail.app on September 9, 2011.

Now a whole bunch of mail messages have the same September 9, 2011 date, regardless of when the mail was actually sent. I checked on my Yahoo! account via the web interface., and they do not have that same issue. The dates are correct.

FRACK!

Now a whole bunch of my messages on Yahoo! are saying Sept. 6, 2011. Somehow, OS X's or Mail's (or Thunderbird's) screw up has screwed up my Yahoo! messages too. Piss me off.

I don't know why those dates are being listed that way. The dates are correct in the header.