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What's Wrong with Leopard Mail 3.5??

F

fjgh47392

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2009
2
0
What’s wrong with Leopard Mail 3.5?? Does Apple really hate Google so much?

I use Thunderbird (2.0) on a MacBook Pro with Leopard. I have multiple mailboxes plus several USENET newsgroups. Result: FLAWLESS. I can hop around these mail accounts and news groups reliably and quickly. I setup Thunderbird per the instructions supplied from each account provider, including Google Mail, and Thunderbird connects and displays / stores email with no problems. we’re talking both POP and IMAP based accounts.

I recently ordered an iTouch and I would like to check email via WiFi. I think I’m correct that iTunes will sync the iTouch mail using only Mac Mail account data(?), so, dutifully, I bring up Apple Mail to setup my gmail account for the iTouch.

Damn! Where do I start?? I’ll bulletize what I’ve found (so far):

o when i launch Mail there’s no View window -- nothing, just the menu bar.
i have to explicitly File -> New Viewer Window to see it. You did test this before you shipped it??

o Mail -> Preferences -> Account icon, under Account, there is “Gmail IMAP”.
click on “Gmail IMAP” and ALL entries regarding servers, ports, security settings,
behaviours, verified identical to Thunderbird. So why does the left panel in the
Viewing window just say “MAILBOXES”. In the setup wizard I stated “Google Mail”
as the name for this account, so why doesn’t it say “Google Mail”?

o even with the setting “Include when automatically checking for new mail” it
doesn’t.

o Mailbox -> Get New Mail -- nothing. no dialog, no messages, no status bar,
no spinning cute graphics, no feedback of any kind indicating what problem
Mail has in making the connection or logging in. Difficult to debug problems
without even a modicum of feedback.

o Mail -> Quit Mail -- doesn’t work. i’ve repeated this many times.
the only way i can terminate Mail is thru “Force Quit...”. Why is that?


OK. i’m tired of typing. has anyone been able to get Mail to connect to a Google email account. If so, would you be kinf enough to list the FULL settings you used in setting up your account?
 
It's amusing that when someone has a problem with a Mac or an app, their first assumption is that there's something wrong with ANYTHING but the user! Never mind the fact that millions use Mail with Gmail every day with zero problems. So instead of a thread with a title like, "Need help setting up Mail with Gmail", we get "What's Wrong with Leopard Mail 3.5??" The answer, of course, is:

Nothing!​
 
i agree with ggj. 99.7% of problems are user related.

but that doesnt seem to be the problem. if you have to force quit it then clearly it hasnt been installed properly. try a reinstall of leopard (archive and install)
 
Ok, here goes--

fjgh47392 said:
o when i launch Mail there’s no View window -- nothing, just the menu bar.
i have to explicitly File -> New Viewer Window to see it. You did test this before you shipped it??
Click to expand...

Mail comes right up for me. I've never had it NOT come up and had to use the File->New Viewer Window. Actually, your post showed me that entry existed.

fjgh47392 said:
o Mail -> Preferences -> Account icon, under Account, there is “Gmail IMAP”. click on “Gmail IMAP” and ALL entries regarding servers, ports, security settings, behaviours, verified identical to Thunderbird. So why does the left panel in the Viewing window just say “MAILBOXES”. In the setup wizard I stated “Google Mail” as the name for this account, so why doesn’t it say “Google Mail”?
Click to expand...

I have several mailboxes set up. One is my Work called "<company name>", My Google Mail is listed as "Gmail" and my Me.com is listed as "<myname@me.com>". I do see MAILBOXES at the top but then it says Inbox and the stuff I listed above.

fjgh47392 said:
o even with the setting “Include when automatically checking for new mail” it doesn’t.
Click to expand...

Not sure -- haven't noticed this. There is a setting on advanced to tell the account to be included with "check for new mail"

fjgh47392 said:
o Mailbox -> Get New Mail -- nothing. no dialog, no messages, no status bar, no spinning cute graphics, no feedback of any kind indicating what problem Mail has in making the connection or logging in. Difficult to debug problems without even a modicum of feedback.
Click to expand...

In the lower left of the window there is a box with an arrow in it (to the right of the +). If you click that it will bring up a Mail Activity window which will show you when the mail is being downloaded. Personally, I hate the windows that popup just to tell me that they are getting mail.

fjgh47392 said:
o Mail -> Quit Mail -- doesn’t work. i’ve repeated this many times.
the only way i can terminate Mail is thru “Force Quit...”. Why is that?
Click to expand...

Something to do with your setup and your machine. Works fine for me.

fjgh47392 said:
OK. i’m tired of typing. has anyone been able to get Mail to connect to a Google email account. If so, would you be kinf enough to list the FULL settings you used in setting up your account?
Click to expand...

Ok --
-- Account Information --
Account type = IMAP
Description: Gmail
Email Address: <mymail>@gmail.com
Name: <name>
Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
User Name: <username>
Password: <password>
Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com

-- Mailbox Behaviors --
Pretty much all checked except for Junk

-- Advanced --
Check - "Enable this account"
Check - "Include when automatically checking for new mail"
IMAP Path Prefix: <blank>
Port: 993 --- Use SSL checked
Authentication: Password

Good luck.
 
Nothing wrong with Mail. It works fine.

Let someone know if you'd like some help setting it up. Or do a quick search.

But, nope - nothing wrong with it. Works great.

Good luck.
 
My thanks to all of you who took the time to reply, particularly to MooneyFlyer who listed out the details of their setup. Yep, your setup looks identical to mine. hostnames, ports, settings. my machine is a new MacBook Pro 15" ordered from Apple. 110GB harddisk 46% used, 2GB main memory, and most software updates (all for MAC OS) installed.

I'm sorry if I offended Mac users but let me state outright I love this system, which is where I get outright flummoxed as to how everything else works beautifully and Mail is, well, behaving overwhelming bad. and it's not just an isolated issue like network connections or invalid login. from the lack of an initial viewing window (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, plus a host of other mailtools I've used professionally ALL work this way) to the need to Force Quit the application seems to indicate something is really wrong with Mail. I'm unsure as to where to go from here.

[in closing, I am a Unix expert back from Bell Labs Syetem Edition III and, yes, I logged in via Terminal and went rummaging around in /var/log -- nothing. People, at least in Unix systems, ALL applications (even the kernel) leave details on their behaviour in a corresponding logfile; Mail -- nothing. grr]

Thanks again.
 
Any time -- I'm a convert myself (from the old Unix days, through Windows, now to my beloved Mac).

I would schedule some time at the Genius bar.. or, do one of the 1:1 sessions with someone at the store. If something is wrong, they'll get it fixed up for you.
 
if mail is the only program not working on your flawless computer, then i still stand by my claim of a re-install.. or at least delete mail and copy it onto your computer from the discs!
 
fjgh47392 said:
My thanks to all of you who took the time to reply, particularly to MooneyFlyer who listed out the details of their setup. Yep, your setup looks identical to mine. hostnames, ports, settings. my machine is a new MacBook Pro 15" ordered from Apple. 110GB harddisk 46% used, 2GB main memory, and most software updates (all for MAC OS) installed.

I'm sorry if I offended Mac users but let me state outright I love this system, which is where I get outright flummoxed as to how everything else works beautifully and Mail is, well, behaving overwhelming bad. and it's not just an isolated issue like network connections or invalid login. from the lack of an initial viewing window (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, plus a host of other mailtools I've used professionally ALL work this way) to the need to Force Quit the application seems to indicate something is really wrong with Mail. I'm unsure as to where to go from here.

[in closing, I am a Unix expert back from Bell Labs Syetem Edition III and, yes, I logged in via Terminal and went rummaging around in /var/log -- nothing. People, at least in Unix systems, ALL applications (even the kernel) leave details on their behaviour in a corresponding logfile; Mail -- nothing. grr]

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

If mail won't close it is due to it still waiting on the connections it opened (to get your mail) to respond. When I synced my gmail account, it had to sync some 30 thousand emails (AR System newgroup FTW). Not only did it take a while, but any time I did something that required network access for mail, it was really slow (usually looked stuck kinda slow). Just give it time to do it's thing, then all should be good.

Because you are force quitting, mail may not be remembering what windows are open.
 
Well obviously there's an issue with mail if its not as easy to set up Gmail on the desktop as it is on the iPhone.

Why snap at the author of this thread, just advise a little help and nicely put it "it was more of a user error than an actual program error but it's an understandable mistake" ...


I find it ridiculous. I'm beginning to hate apple mail, its been very unreliable to me in the past year, along with the rest of apples software. I know I'm bashing apple and I'm going to be flamed but I still would never choose windows for a default machine, OS/x rocks, don't get me wrong, but the reliability is going downhill, the more mainstream, the more shiny and shi**y it gets.
 
In all honesty, I use both Mail and Entourage but for different reasons. Entourage clearly works better with my Exchange server so mail shows right up, I can schedule meetings with invites, and I like the way attachments do not go directly inline.

However, when I read an email that comes from someone using Outlook on a PC with Word as their editor -- and they've used bullets -- it is completely unreadable in Entourage. It loses the formatting / hierarchy. So, I read those in Mail. I also do the majority of my composing and sending with Mail.

Mail, however, has its issues as well. More than once a message has shown up in Entourage and not in Mail. Or, I get two copies in Mail where the lead copy is blank. So, it's not 100% reliable.

I've got high hopes for the Snow Leopard version of Mail with Exchange support. <gulp>
 
Ironically enough I had a similar problem this weekend with Mail. "Quit" was not a valid menu option. My work Exchange account had a "!" next to it and I was unable to resolve that without removing the account. Once I removed and re-added the account everything was fine.
 
I have the identical problem that the OP is describing.

I did the upgrade from 10.4.11 to 10.5.6 on an Early 2006 17" iMac with 2GB. Before doing the upgrade I was using Mail without fault. I cloned the drive to an external before starting the install.

After Leopard was done, lauching Mail resulted in no windows opening, just the menu bar. All the account settings transferred over. However, Mail won't close unless I tell Finder to force it close. Guess I'll try deleting and re-entering accounts.
 
Same problem -- Fixed!

I had the exact same problems when I loaded Leopard onto my 17" iMac (1GHz PowerPC G4 with 512 MB DDR SDRAM). Mail would not come up and would require me to Force Quit.

Here's what fixed it for me.
1. Force quit Mail
2. In Finder, move these 2 files to the desktop
Library/mail/MessageRules.plist
Library/mail/MessageRules.plist.backup
3. Open mail
4. Go to Preferences then Accounts
5. Click the - sign to remove the Account
6. Then click the + sign to re-add the account

That was it. I then trashed the two files from my desktop.

Good luck -- It worked for me.
 
I've been having the same problems as the OP. Tried what the above poster said and it worked for a while. However, I have been having problems again. Just noticed that if I leave it there for a while before i force quit that it eventually quit on its own. I'm guessing it has something to do with its connections to the server.
 
Im having problems with Gmail + Mail too. I use another IMAP account from my work, and this one works just fine. But when I configure a Gmail account, Mail never quits properly. I have to force quit. If I remove the Gmail account, Mail works fine again. My guess is that, given the high number of messages in my Gmail account, Mail is keeping a persistent connection to the server, trying to download everything since I configured it. May be that is the problem of some of other users, as Gmail users usually never delete their emails, resulting in a huge Inbox.
 
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