Mail keeps crashing

[berlingoodman]

Hi all,

My Mail has been crashing consistently for a few months now. I believe it started once I switched to High Sierra, yet I have another computer at my work space which is older and can only go to El Capitan and it's happening there, too.

All of a sudden Mail will just crash and I get that annoying message asking whether to Ignore, Reopen and Mail To Apple. Then when I reopen, Mail is no longer in full screen mode, like I have it normally set up to do, and a blank 'compose' mail also shows up. Huh?

After researching around, I tried rebuilding all my mailboxes. That worked for a bit but then the problem returned. Like I said, it's happening on both my computers. My one at home is a MacBook Pro mid-2010 13inch running High Sierra. My work space computer is a mid-2007 iMac running El Capitan. I've replaced both internal hard drives with SSD. The problem happened before I did that, and I was hoping it would fix it, but no such luck.

I also tried resetting the NVRM, and for some reason that no longer works either. I press control, option, P + R, and the computer just reboots normally...no repeating start up chime, or sometimes it only repeats once and then reboots normally.

Anyone have any idea what's going on here and how to fix it??

Thank you all!

 

[beatrixwillius]

Can you post the relevant section of the crash log? That would be the start and the part where it says "thread x crashed" and below.

How did you rebuild your mailboxes? I have the problem, too, on High Sierra that Mail crashes. Deleting the complete MailData folder a couple of times usually fixes the problem. And then Mail is okay for a couple of months.

 

[berlingoodman]

Can you post the relevant section of the crash log? That would be the start and the part where it says "thread x crashed" and below.

How did you rebuild your mailboxes? I have the problem, too, on High Sierra that Mail crashes. Deleting the complete MailData folder a couple of times usually fixes the problem. And then Mail is okay for a couple of months.

How / where so I find the crash log, please?

 

[beatrixwillius]

The location is /Users/your user name/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports. Then look for files from Mail. Open the file. Copy the header. Scroll down until you find something like "thread x crashed". Copy this paragraph here, too.

 

[berlingoodman]

Got it, thanks!

This page describes how to rebuild the Mailbox:

How to rebuild a mailbox in Mac Mail | Knowledge Base

This is a quick step-by-step guide for rebuilding a mailbox in Mac Mail (on macOS High Sierra).

www.34sp.com

Here's what you requested form the Diagnostics Report:

Header:
Process: Mail [391]
Path: /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
Identifier: Mail
Version: 11.5 (3445.9.5)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: Mail [391]
User ID: 501

Thread 7 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: IMAPNetworkTaskHandler queue (QOS: BACKGROUND)
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff5e9c3b66 __pthread_kill + 10
1 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff5eb8e080 pthread_kill + 333
2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff5e91f1ae abort + 127
3 libc++abi.dylib 0x00007fff5c819f8f abort_message + 245
4 libc++abi.dylib 0x00007fff5c81a12b default_terminate_handler() + 265
5 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff5dc5aa47 _objc_terminate() + 97
6 libc++abi.dylib 0x00007fff5c8357c9 std::__terminate(void (*)()) + 8
7 libc++abi.dylib 0x00007fff5c835843 std::terminate() + 51
8 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e839dcc _dispatch_client_callout + 28
9 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e84c33e _dispatch_block_invoke_direct + 317
10 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e839db8 _dispatch_client_callout + 8
11 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e84c33e _dispatch_block_invoke_direct + 317
12 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e84c1e1 dispatch_block_perform + 109
13 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff389a111c __NSOQSchedule_f + 342
14 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e839db8 _dispatch_client_callout + 8
15 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e84ce81 _dispatch_continuation_pop + 472
16 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e844733 _dispatch_async_redirect_invoke + 703
17 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e83b9a9 _dispatch_root_queue_drain + 515
18 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff5e83b755 _dispatch_worker_thread3 + 101
19 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff5eb8b169 _pthread_wqthread + 1387
20 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff5eb8abe9 start_wqthread + 13

 

[beatrixwillius]

Looks like the same problem as described here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251133529

I love the fatalistic answer:

It's possible an incompatibility exists between Mail and one or more of the email services you're using. There isn't much you can do about that, except to continue to send those crash reports to Apple when they appear. Apple doesn't respond, but if they contain information useful to them they may address it in a future macOS update.

I'd try to delete the complete MailData folder from users/your username/ApplicationSupport/Mail/V5. See https://www.mothsoftware.com/blog_page.php?permalink=the-applemail-data-folder .

 

[berlingoodman]

I'd try to delete the complete MailData folder from users/your username/ApplicationSupport/Mail/V5. See https://www.mothsoftware.com/blog_page.php?permalink=the-applemail-data-folder .
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. I'll try that.

I also came across this:

Mail Keeps Crashing on macOS High Sierra, How-To Fix - AppleToolBox

Does Mail keep crashing on your Mac after an update to High Sierra? Or having other Mac Mail App issues? If so, let's fix these Mail issues

appletoolbox.com

Have you tried any of these options?

Also, any idea why trying to reset my NVRAM doesn't working either?

 

[beatrixwillius]

I think I had to reset the PRAM the last time about 10-15 years ago. That's for a very specific kind of problems.

 

[berlingoodman]

I tried deleting the Mail Data like you suggested. Fingers crossed. Turns out I actually had two Mail Data folders in there, one from a previous operating system. Deleted that, too. Hopefully this will do the trick. Thanks again for your help!

 

[fivenotrump]

My Mail often crashes at 00:20 local time, usually an array index out of bounds such as 'index 9223372036854775807 beyond bounds [0 .. 153]'

I'd try to delete the complete MailData folder from users/your username/ApplicationSupport/Mail/V5. See https://www.mothsoftware.com/blog_page.php?permalink=the-applemail-data-folder .

This path is wrong, MailData is in ~/Library/Mail/V5 not ApplicationSupport [sic]
[automerge]1592199495[/automerge]

I think I had to reset the PRAM the last time about 10-15 years ago. That's for a very specific kind of problems.

Yes. Any purported 'help' that starts with this suggestion must be suspect.

 

[berlingoodman]

I think I had to reset the PRAM the last time about 10-15 years ago. That's for a very specific kind of problems.

Hi again!

So I deleted my Mail Data. Waited forever for my mail to be reloaded again. It worked fine for one day, and just crashed again today. Grrrrrr!!!

Do I have to delete the Mail Data a few times before it stops??

 

[berlingoodman]

And. i just saw that the V2 folder reappeared!! Why are there two Mail Data folders?? Any ideas?

 

[berlingoodman]

OK it's me again. Now I'm really confused. Turns out that the screen shot I sent you was from the Library folder that I access direct from my internal drive (Mac Drive/Library/Mail/V2 & V4), NOT from the User folder (User/Library/Mail/V5). In other words I have two Mail folders on my hard drive. I just deleted the Mail Data in the one with the V5 folder (running High Sierra here), but I still have a Mail folder in another location with V2 and V4 folders, plus a second PersistanceInfo.plist file. Surely this is what's causing the crash, no?

The Mail folder with the old system folders is 28 GB's! So doesn't seem like a good idea to delete it, unless it's just old mails, which are also in my V5 folder.

Please help!