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Mac Mail Issue!

N

npep

macrumors member
Original poster
May 7, 2007
99
0
I am currently working with a Mac Mail specialist (2 weeks and counting), but have yet to find a solution so I thought I would throw it out here...

Background:
I have been using Entourage for 2 years and everything has been fine. Little glitches and crashes here and there, but nothing major. Decided to switch over to Mail to integrate Address Book better and sync better with my iPhone. I don't have to switch, just want to use more Apple software. I have two email accounts on the mail program, home and work.

Problem:
After setting up Mail, everything sets up well and seems to work fine. The problem occurs when I receive a email from a specific email, it locks up the mail program and will not receive emails from that account. I can send emails, but nothing can be sent until I force quit the Mail program, delete the problem email from iPhone (yes, I have to go to my iPhone email and get rid of it!) and restart my computer. The second issue is that any of the emails that do come through to the Mail program can NOT be deleted! It looks as if it is trying to delete the email, but when you switch email accounts and then look to see if the email is deleted, it is still there.

What we have tried so far:
Set up Mail on test account and another one of my macs and have no issues with the email.
Deleted Mail on my account and completely reinstalled and reset up, still have problem.
Upgraded to snow leopard, still have problem.

Everyone is scratching their heads on this one and it is driving me crazy!
Any ideas? I would love to hear them!
 
Thanks for the reminder MisterMe...

Actually, I don't think it is the account, I have tested it on both my work and my home account and it does it on both!
Home is a bellsouth.net account
Work is .org account on its own server.

Completely different types of accounts and obviously on totally different servers. It is the Mail program itself that is causing the issue and only on my computer!
 
I think he's asking more along the lines of: What type of accounts are you using? POP? IMAP? Exchange? Do you have any type of Rules set up in Mail? Is the email that keeps locking up your computer from the same address or is it a specific domain?
 
A few more details:
Home account: POP (bellsouth)
I have tried multiple server setting within the bellsouth account to see if that would help as well.
Work account: IMAP

No rules at all within mail.

It is the same email address, it only happens when I get an email from that specific person. I have not tried to see if others from that domain would do the same thing. Like I said, it is very strange!


rjames86 said:
I think he's asking more along the lines of: What type of accounts are you using? POP? IMAP? Exchange? Do you have any type of Rules set up in Mail? Is the email that keeps locking up your computer from the same address or is it a specific domain?
Click to expand...
 
Is the problem email coming to your Bellsouth email or the work email account?

Definitely seems like a bizarre issue. With your given information I can't tell you much. I've never come across anything like this.
 
It occurs with either one, work or bellsouth. Again, I think it is a software glitch and not an email issue.

rjames86 said:
Is the problem email coming to your Bellsouth email or the work email account?

Definitely seems like a bizarre issue. With your given information I can't tell you much. I've never come across anything like this.
Click to expand...
 
npep said:
After setting up Mail, everything sets up well and seems to work fine. The problem occurs when I receive a email from a specific email, it locks up the mail program and will not receive emails from that account. I can send emails, but nothing can be sent until I force quit the Mail program, delete the problem email from iPhone (yes, I have to go to my iPhone email and get rid of it!) and restart my computer. The second issue is that any of the emails that do come through to the Mail program can NOT be deleted! It looks as if it is trying to delete the email, but when you switch email accounts and then look to see if the email is deleted, it is still there.
Click to expand...

I'm a little confused about what you are describing. Are you saying that when sending an email, it freezes mail? Where does the iphone fit into this? I am assuming that this is an IMAP account if doing something on the phone is affecting your laptop as well? The problem sounds like it would be an error caused by your outgoing mail server settings, which you would likely see as your SMTP. If your work gives you the option, try switching between secure / not secure settings for that.

The issue of not being able to delete a message would have to do with permissions set on your mail server. Is that occurring on your work email set up to be IMAP?

Ultimately, you might need to accept that Mail in OS X is not great. I keep a site which I use mostly just for the email and storage, and I always had problems with getting it to sync right. So I just have all my different accounts filter into Gmail. This way its centralized with them, and its all backed up since they have such a huge amount of space available.
 
Anthro,
The iPhone is only a solution. It allows me to delete the email that is hanging everything up and makes Mail freeze.

Like i said before, the email freezes Mail when using either one of my accounts. It has to be something in the software itself.

No solution yet...
 
You say you uninstalled and reinstalled Mail, right? Was the reinstall from the same install CD? If so, that may not isolate the problem if it is, in fact, part of the software. In order to eliminate the possibility that it is with your accounts or your connection, you may want to try downloading Thunderbird or a similar mail program. It may be that some sort of connection is causing issues.

It is extremely unlikely, but possible, that either your ISP is blocking something (like the port which Mail is using). Do you have other computers in your house using the same modem as this computer?
 
You say you uninstalled and reinstalled Mail, right? Was the reinstall from the same install CD? If so, that may not isolate the problem if it is, in fact, part of the software. In order to eliminate the possibility that it is with your accounts or your connection, you may want to try downloading Thunderbird or a similar mail program. It may be that some sort of connection is causing issues.

It is extremely unlikely, but possible, that either your ISP is blocking something (like the port which Mail is using). Do you have other computers in your house using the same modem as this computer?
 
Anthro,
Thanks for thinking about this!
I have entourage installed and it works like a champ, just wanted to use more Apple and less Microsoft. Plus, entourage crashes on occasion and can be annoying, but at least it works!

I can get Mail to work on my other Mac fine with no issues with the email address that gives me problems. Same wifi connection and internet.

I am going to try and reinstall Mail with the new Snow Leopard disk I purchased and see if that will work. I will update you later...


Anthropogenesis said:
You say you uninstalled and reinstalled Mail, right? Was the reinstall from the same install CD? If so, that may not isolate the problem if it is, in fact, part of the software. In order to eliminate the possibility that it is with your accounts or your connection, you may want to try downloading Thunderbird or a similar mail program. It may be that some sort of connection is causing issues.

It is extremely unlikely, but possible, that either your ISP is blocking something (like the port which Mail is using). Do you have other computers in your house using the same modem as this computer?
Click to expand...
 
Is the e-mail being sent in RTF, HTML or Plain Text? Are there any suspicious attachments?

Try checking the e-mail (get them to send a demo message using their default client settings that they use, to either account) with www.mail2web.com and see if there are attachments that could be tripping Mail.app up.
 
Plastic, I have no issues with the email in entourage at all. The emails are always plain text and there are no embedded attachments.

Keep thinking, still working towards a solution cause it is driving me crazy!



plasticphyte said:
Is the e-mail being sent in RTF, HTML or Plain Text? Are there any suspicious attachments?

Try checking the e-mail (get them to send a demo message using their default client settings that they use, to either account) with www.mail2web.com and see if there are attachments that could be tripping Mail.app up.
Click to expand...
 
For the record, Bellsouth has been really bad lately for me.

Does just receiving the mail from this one sender provoke the chaos?
Or does it happen when you reply?

Could be outgoing settings (automatically matched to email account)

Bellsouth is now Yahoo for email, have you switched?

Are you using pop.att.yahoo.com
and smtp.yahoo.com?

Make sure SSL is OFF and Authentication is ON (Really) for outgoing.

Also the iPhone should be set up with the Yahoo option and your BellSouth email.
 
Thanks Mebsat...
I have all those settings and am resetting up everything today to see if deleting everything and starting from scratch will do it! We will see!

It is only one sender that does all the damage...it happens to be my wife as well which make it even more frustrating!


Mebsat said:
For the record, Bellsouth has been really bad lately for me.

Does just receiving the mail from this one sender provoke the chaos?
Or does it happen when you reply?

Could be outgoing settings (automatically matched to email account)

Bellsouth is now Yahoo for email, have you switched?

Are you using pop.att.yahoo.com
and smtp.yahoo.com?

Make sure SSL is OFF and Authentication is ON (Really) for outgoing.

Also the iPhone should be set up with the Yahoo option and your BellSouth email.
Click to expand...
 
Well, I am done!

I have no clue what else to do...I just finished reinstalling Mail from scratch, even redownloading the Combo update. I did not import anything from entourage, addresses, mailboxes or emails. I tried to keep it as simple as possible and still have the same issue!

Wow, so disappointed and still have no clue why it would hang up the way it does...

Thanks for the help everyone...
Gggggggrrrrrrrrr!
 
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