Help! Mail telling me I need to set up mailboxes again?!

[kage777]

So I closed mail the other day just like normal, but now when I go to open it again it prompts me with the "welcome to mail" screen and asks me to create my mailbox again.

I don't understand what happened. I had several different mailboxes already set up. Are they just now gone? is there anyway to get them back? can I look for the files?

thanks for any help in advance.

 

[pismobrat]

Sorry to hear this has plaguing your

Couple of things before we can really troubleshoot

- Are you running backups? Eg Time Machine
This would allow you to restore your files
- Have your run a Permission Repair & Verify your Disk with Disk Utility to see if there are any errors that should be repaired

Run the repair and report back, and if your not backing up your files, get your fanny down to a store and by a backup drive.

 

[kage777]

I repaired the disk permissions, still nothing so far.

and I do have a time machine, how can I restore from there?

 

[kage777]

Ok, so this is what I have tried.

I have repaired the disk permissions, several things repaired. I have repaired the disk, no errors found. Ran disk permissions again, still have numerous permissions repaired.

Tried mail in between each one, and still get the set up screen.

From another forum, I found a post talking about this problem, and someone said that it was either the plist associated with mail getting corrupted, or some corrupted directory information that is preventing OSX to get the plist.

Anyone have anymore ideas? How can I recover my mail accounts from time machine?

 

[fred.bloggs]

Ok, so this is what I have tried.

I have repaired the disk permissions, several things repaired. I have repaired the disk, no errors found. Ran disk permissions again, still have numerous permissions repaired.

Tried mail in between each one, and still get the set up screen.

From another forum, I found a post talking about this problem, and someone said that it was either the plist associated with mail getting corrupted, or some corrupted directory information that is preventing OSX to get the plist.

Anyone have anymore ideas? How can I recover my mail accounts from time machine?

My Father in Law had exactly this problem. From memory I think the file is com.apple.mail.plist. Simply recover this from time machine from a date when you know it was working and it will all be OK.

 

[kage777]

Thanks for the info. Would you know where to find that file? Is it in /users/username/Library someplace?

 

[fred.bloggs]

Thanks for the info. Would you know where to find that file? Is it in /users/username/Library someplace?

/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

 

[kage777]

So I found the plist file in time machine, and restored it, but it is still giving me the set up screen. I can open the plist and see the different mailboxes that I have there. And the mailboxes are still in the /users/username/library/mail/v2/etc. so I'm confused what is going on.

Any other ideas?

 

[fred.bloggs]

Did you go back far enough in time?

Did you restore it to the same location? (I'm not sure time machine defaults to the same location)

Did you delete/move the existing file. Not sure what time machine does if the original file is there and you try to restore over the top.

Can't think of much else

Good luck