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Ilja · Sep 16, 2003, 05:43 AM

Probably something that I've overlooked, but mail.app doesn't want to download my imap mail anymore. It doesn't say 'connecting to server' etc... just doesn't do anything. Just noticed it when logging into my web-interface and seeing lots of new email.

I've checked my account and everything is still how it's supposed to be ...

Ilja · Sep 16, 2003, 04:30 PM

Anyone?

Ratm · Sep 16, 2003, 04:58 PM

If you check all the settings and made sure everything is correct then it has nothing to do with Mail.app, I would give your ISP a call and see if the they're having any server issues or if they can resolve the conflict.

Ilja · Sep 16, 2003, 05:05 PM

Well I'm pretty sure it's mail.app, since it doesn't even try to connect to the server...

Ratm · Sep 16, 2003, 05:42 PM

I had a smilar problem and this is what I did( you can always undo it so don't worry). Locate the mail folder and mail preference file

Home>Library>Mail
Home>Library>Preferences>com.apple.mail.plist
move these two items to your desktop...now relaunch Mail.app re-create the account, double check the settings and see if you can now download your mail. If it does work just import the old mailboxes and drop and drag all your all emails to the new account. But If by chance it doesn't work just place the items back in there original locations. Hope it helps.

zigzag · Sep 18, 2003, 12:24 AM

Same problem here. It appears to have popped up in the last week or two for alot of people. Trashing my plist file didn't help.

I'm wondering: if I want to re-install Mail, how do I keep the contents of my old mailboxes? Where are they located, and do I just move them to the desktop while I reinstall?

kennedy · Sep 18, 2003, 12:39 AM

Originally posted by zigzag:
Same problem here. It appears to have popped up in the last week or two for alot of people. Trashing my plist file didn't help.

I'm wondering: if I want to re-install Mail, how do I keep the contents of my old mailboxes? Where are they located, and do I just move them to the desktop while I reinstall?

Your mailboxes are in your HOME/Library/Mail folder... reinstalling the app will not disturb them.

Did you guys change anything on your system before it stopped downloading mail?

Can you 'ping' your mailhost?

zigzag · Sep 18, 2003, 01:32 AM

Originally posted by kennedy:
Your mailboxes are in your HOME/Library/Mail folder... reinstalling the app will not disturb them.

Did you guys change anything on your system before it stopped downloading mail?

Can you 'ping' your mailhost?

Thanks for the re-install tip.

I recently added an iSub and installed FCE. However, neither had an immediate effect on Mail, and the Apple support boards show a lot of people having this problem just in the last couple of weeks.

Sorry to sound ignorant - what's a ping? FWIW I use .Mac via Comcast cable.

Also, I can still send e-mail via Mail, it just won't retrieve new e-mails. The "Get Mail" button is dead - nothing happens. This suggests to me that it's the app, not the server. But I'm just guessing.

Thanks again.

kennedy · Sep 18, 2003, 10:31 AM

Originally posted by zigzag:
the Apple support boards show a lot of people having this problem just in the last couple of weeks.

Sorry to sound ignorant - what's a ping? FWIW I use .Mac via Comcast cable.

Are all the people having problems also .Mac people??

Ping? Its a fairly low-level communication between two machines... most machines will support it... its roughly equivalent to one machine saying "hey, you, say something" and the other saying "something" back. It is a great way to verify that your machine can at least talk to that other machine... eliminating a whole host of network issues as possible causes.

How-to? Open up Terminal and type "ping mail.mac.com" without the quotes. If its working, then you will see output showing how long the responses took to arrive... giving you an idea of network and server performance. However...

Also, I can still send e-mail via Mail, it just won't retrieve new e-mails. The "Get Mail" button is dead - nothing happens. This suggests to me that it's the app, not the server.

If I remember right, .mac uses the same host for IMAP as for SMTP (receiving and sending). Thus, if you can send, then you are definitely talking fine to the server.

Given many people are having similar problems with .mac, then its not likely everyone went and reset their settings the same wrong way... that points to the server. But if your Get Mail button is gray, then its something the mail app would have to recognize.

Based on that, my guess is that Apple turned off something on the server... something a bunch of people's servers were using... like SSL support... or one of the authentication protocols... or some such. I'd probably try setting up a new account in preferences... as if I just got my .Mac account... I think Apple Mail automatically sets most of the settings properly for .Mac accounts... let it. See if that works (un-enable your current account so that it doesn't confuse things while you're testing). Another option is to try the simpler authentication protocols and such. But then if this is being discussed on the Apple forums, I suspect the better answers will show up there.

But maybe my rambling was worth something...

zigzag · Sep 18, 2003, 12:13 PM

Originally posted by kennedy:
Are all the people having problems also .Mac people??

Not sure, but that was my impression. I think a number of them noted that their other e-mail clients worked fine, but not Mail.

If I remember right, .mac uses the same host for IMAP as for SMTP (receiving and sending). Thus, if you can send, then you are definitely talking fine to the server.

Given many people are having similar problems with .mac, then its not likely everyone went and reset their settings the same wrong way... that points to the server. But if your Get Mail button is gray, then its something the mail app would have to recognize.

What's weird is that the Get Mail button isn't grey. It's on, it's just that nothing happens when I click on it. Same if I use the drop-down menu instruction. It doesn't even try to connect.

But maybe my rambling was worth something...

Absolutely. Thanks again.

zigzag · Sep 19, 2003, 06:00 PM

I may have found the solution to our problem, folks. Unfortunately, it's embarrassingly simple: go to your Mailbox menu and if the first item says "Go Online", click on it and you can retrieve new messages again.

It seems that this setting changed for a number of people during the past week or two for no apparent reason - I've never used it before and didn't even think of it until I saw a post at Apple support. Weird.

Hope this works for you.

mogura · Sep 22, 2003, 07:45 PM

Would be nice if Mail.app would keep an account online and continue to check for mail after encountering a problem connecting to the mail server.

The way it works now, by prompting for a password, holds up the entire application and confuses alot of people when the account is automatically taken offline.

By contrast, Entourage continues to check for the account, while making a entry into the error log.

Ilja · Sep 23, 2003, 02:50 PM

Originally posted by zigzag:
I may have found the solution to our problem, folks. Unfortunately, it's embarrassingly simple: go to your Mailbox menu and if the first item says "Go Online", click on it and you can retrieve new messages again.

It seems that this setting changed for a number of people during the past week or two for no apparent reason - I've never used it before and didn't even think of it until I saw a post at Apple support. Weird.

Hope this works for you.

That was exactly my problem.... It IS embarrassingly simple, however Mail.app doesn't handle this well. Would be helpfull if it makes it visible when something happens like this. Especially when you hit the 'retreive messages' button and don't see any notice that you're offline....

zigzag · Sep 23, 2003, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by Ilja:
That was exactly my problem.... It IS embarrassingly simple, however Mail.app doesn't handle this well. Would be helpfull if it makes it visible when something happens like this. Especially when you hit the 'retreive messages' button and don't see any notice that you're offline....

What I'd like to know is: how come this setting got changed on so many people just in the past few weeks, without any action on their part? I've been using Mail for a year and it's never happened before. Weird.

ph0ust · Sep 24, 2003, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by zigzag:
I may have found the solution to our problem, folks. Unfortunately, it's embarrassingly simple: go to your Mailbox menu and if the first item says "Go Online", click on it and you can retrieve new messages again.

Hope this works for you.

i have been having imap email problems as well, although i do NOT use .mac. i tried the "go online" solution to no avail, so at this point i am simply unable to get my personal email via imap.

what the heck occured to make this spontaneously stop working, was it an update that hosed the app? is there any real fix for this? assuming that 10.2.8 works, will it resolve this issue? this really sux.

zigzag · Sep 24, 2003, 06:07 PM

Originally posted by ph0ust:
i have been having imap email problems as well, although i do NOT use .mac. i tried the "go online" solution to no avail, so at this point i am simply unable to get my personal email via imap.

what the heck occured to make this spontaneously stop working, was it an update that hosed the app? is there any real fix for this? assuming that 10.2.8 works, will it resolve this issue? this really sux.

Do you use Comcast mail? If so, you might want to check out the Mail threads at Apple support - they say that in order to download new mail, you have to delete an e-mail from PayPal. Apparently something about that particular e-mail prevents all subsequent e-mails from downloading. Hope this helps.

ph0ust · Sep 26, 2003, 12:24 PM

Originally posted by zigzag:
Do you use Comcast mail? If so, you might want to check out the Mail threads at Apple support - they say that in order to download new mail, you have to delete an e-mail from PayPal. Apparently something about that particular e-mail prevents all subsequent e-mails from downloading. Hope this helps.

huh, that sounds weird, but no i don't use comcast and haven't even used paypal. i have email hosted with an IT services company. it worked... then it just stopped. it really, really sux! i can actually send email via smtp, but cannot log into the server to retrieve email, it just keeps "connecting to server".

John G. Stillmank · 05:27 PM

Make sure the "include when checking for mail" button is selected for the account in question. I just had a "d'oh" moment on that one!

mogura · Oct 3, 2003, 09:29 AM

All these suggestions are good, and it seems about all that can be done, but I'm getting tired from seeing that wrong password or account dialogue box when I return to the computer.

If Mail has a problem connecting to my ISP, it shouldn't take the account offline and stop checking for mail until I re-enter my password or check the configuration of my account.

It needs to just log the error, keep the account online and try again on the next connect time.

xmishx · Oct 6, 2003, 12:43 PM

I've got 3 accounts via Mail and only the comcast account is shooting me the problems. Just recently did Mail just stop retrieving comcast mail. Before that, it took forever to "Preparing to retrieve messages", and now other delays are happening as well. As said before, it is also delaying the retrieval of my other 2 accounts. I have not tried any of the above possible fixes, but will do so. Any other clues?

Thanks,

X

zigzag · Oct 9, 2003, 08:34 PM

For those having this problem, I may have figured out a related occurrence (at least in some cases). This morning, I was working in another app and noticed my Mail icon bouncing (Mail normally checks for new mail every 10 minutes). There was a dialogue box asking for the password to my .Mac account, which has happened before but is unusual. It wouldn't accept the password, so after a few tries I hit "Cancel." I then checked the Mailbox menu and noticed that it had changed to "Go online," meaning it had gone offline. I don't know why it went offline, but in any case when I selected "Go online" the dialogue box came up again, and rejected my password again. So I closed Mail and reopened it. This time when I selected "Go online," everything was back to normal. I don't know if it was due to closing-reopening or just the passage of time.

So it seems to me that something out of our control is causing Mail to go offline on occasion, and this causes the dialogue box to come up, asking for a password, which gets rejected. Anyway, now you know that if you see that dialogue box and it rejects your password, check the Mailbox menu for "Go online." Hope this helps at least some of you.