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Mail keeps "fetching new mail"

E

erh

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 17, 2004
27
0
Hi

My Mail has worked since the beginning, but yesterday it stopped fetching incoming mails. I can send mails, but not receive!

The clock keeps on spinning and says "fetching new mail"
My server ports is set to 25 and 110 as default.

When I try to quit Mail, it dosen't. I have to force-quit Mail to close it.

Any ideas

ERH
 
i sorta had the same problem. I could receive mail but no send mail don't know if this helps but this is what apple sent me when i sent them an email:


The first thing we would recommend is to test the account at .Mac Mail Online, <http://webmail.mac.com/>. If that works, then the .Mac services are working correctly.

Sending email using smtp.mac.com fails if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) doesn't allow proper access.

Contact your ISP:

1. Contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and make sure the standard port used by most email applications, Port 25, can be used to send email.

It is important to realize that many Internet Service Providers block access to the standard port (Port 25). They are not required to notify their members if they decide to do so. This discourages the sending of unsolicited commercial email or "SPAM". This can make it difficult to send email using an SMTP server other than the one used by your ISP. If an ISP does not allow access to port 25, follow step 2.

2. If your ISP is blocking port 25, you can change the port to 587 and try again. Choose Mail > Preferences, and click Accounts. Select your account, then click the Server Settings button in the Account Information pane. Change the Port from 25 to 587. Click OK, close the Preferences window, and try sending your message again.

3. If you still cannot send mail, use the ISP mail server.
Add the ISP SMTP hostname to the Mac.com account in your email application. This information can be obtained by referring to your ISP mail settings, or contacting the ISP.

Sincerely,

The .Mac Support Team
 
Have you been having trouble accessing websites too? Sometimes if DNS gets out of whack then Mail will constantly try to fetch. I think it has a ridiculously long timeout before it gives up.

Can you ping your IMAP or POP server? Does it support multiple protocols? What happens if you change to another protocol?

It could very well be a server-side issue that they are working on, and you are just getting blocked out while they work. Happens all the time.

Jim
 
I'm using www.addr.com as host.
I have no problem logging on there site with my password, and I have no problem browsing web-pages.

I just reinstalled OSX. Updated everything.
The force quit problem, I fount out is because Mail is still working when I try to quit, and I therefor have to force-quite.

Non of my secure sockets is checked, and no password.
 
in case you use pop mail try opening a terminal
you will be doing what mail does for you

type what's red, the rest are responses from the server
Code: 
[COLOR=Red]telnet your.pop.server 110[/COLOR]
Trying x.x.x.x...
Connected to your.pop.server.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Ready
[COLOR=Red]user yourusername[/COLOR]
+OK Please send PASS command
[COLOR=Red]pass yourpassword[/COLOR]
...
[COLOR=Red]list[/COLOR] to get a lst of all the mails in your inbox
[COLOR=Red]top 1 1[/COLOR] to view the headers of the first mail
[COLOR=Red]top 2 1[/COLOR] to view the headers of the second mail
[COLOR=Red]dele 1[/COLOR] to delete the first mail (do this if a mail is size 0 (size is second number in list))
...
[COLOR=Red]quit[/COLOR]
+OK Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.
Do look for large or 0 k mails and delete them. If you have read all the mail in the box, delete them all. This could solve the problem.

Good luck
 
Have you installed anything lately? You might want to Repair Permissions just for good measure. That can sometimes fix odd problems like this.

The problem I've been having with Mail.app is a bit different. After waking my PowerBook from sleep, Mail will attemp to Fetch Mail but stalls while trying to contact the mail server. If I quit Mail and restart, all is fine. (I'm running 10.3.8 on a PB 1.33Ghz). Anyone else having that problem?
 
rikers_mailbox said:
Have you installed anything lately? You might want to Repair Permissions just for good measure. That can sometimes fix odd problems like this.

The problem I've been having with Mail.app is a bit different. After waking my PowerBook from sleep, Mail will attemp to Fetch Mail but stalls while trying to contact the mail server. If I quit Mail and restart, all is fine. (I'm running 10.3.8 on a PB 1.33Ghz). Anyone else having that problem?
Click to expand...

Are you on a wireless network? Sometimes it takes a while for the IP and DNS info to be updated after waking. Mail automatically tries to fetch before checking for a net connection. It could just be that the net is active in the amount of time that it took you to quit and relaunch.

Jim
 
sound like corrupted mail files to me.

go to ~/Library/Mail and, for each account, go into the POP-xxx folder and delete (i.e. move out of that folder) INBOX.mbox. try the mail fetch again. if it works, then you've got a corrupted inbox.
 
Hi Jim
I am on a wireless network. But it's not the wake-up time which is the issue.
But I'm wondering if I find another network an see if it works there. That way I could exclude the possibility that it's my internet (Earthlink/TW cable) provider that have change (closed) port setting.

I haven't installed anything. I wrongly opened a spam mail earlier that day, and i had a MS Office software update.

I just ran "Disk Utility", no improve.


I have erased all mails in "junk", "trash", and all mails in "in" from until before the problem started.

I open a terminal and logged in. Everything looks fine, but I got so much junk-mail, so it's impossible for me to read all mails.

Here is the terminal info:

Last login: Thu Mar 10 11:37:49 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
erh-Computer:~ erh$
erh-Computer:~ erh$ telnet addr.com 110
Trying 209.249.147.252...
Connected to addr2.addr.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK POP3 addr.com
erh
-ERR Unknown command in AUTHORIZATION state
user erh
+OK Password required for erh.
pass "my password"
+OK erh has 887 visible messages (0 hidden) in 4593166 octets.
list
+OK 887 visible messages (4593166 octets)
1 1335
2 1076
3 1873
4 949
5 1603
6 1370
7 969
8 1188
9 1889
10 7679
......
......
..
881 9323
882 2042
883 1929
884 1032
885 502
886 2185
887 1237
.
top 1 1
+OK Message follows
Return-Path: <xgxxbgg@surfway.de>
Received: from dynamic-62-56-54-5.park-s46b.dslaccess.co.uk (dynamic-62-56-54-5.park-s46b.dslaccess.co.uk [62.56.54.5])
by addr32.addr.com (8.12.11/8.12.8/Submit) with SMTP id j1LGHAjq076219
for <sult@erh.com>; Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:17:14 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <G291T9XF3N912G04OC81EZY15172883A456208@62.56.54.5>
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:newsletter
Location: 119 alcott acm
Reply-To: "Thanh Lavonne" <rpnmc@destin.com>
From: "Thanh Lavonne" <psmorcaff@goodgirlz.com>
To: "Sult" <sult@erh.com>
Subject: Body hurts?
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:27:10 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="--78381618317030271"
X-ADDRSpamFilter: Passed, probability (10%)
X-ADDRSignature: 483E7E1
X-UIDL: B(e"!~6&#!Pc1!!;(e!!
Status: RO

----78381618317030271
.
top 2 1
+OK Message follows
Return-Path: <Blueytq@correoweb.com>
Received: from ALyon-112-1-5-140.w81-49.abo.wanadoo.fr (ALyon-112-1-5-140.w81-49.abo.wanadoo.fr [81.49.231.140])
by addr32.addr.com (8.12.11/8.12.8/Submit) with SMTP id j1LHS3s2052581
for <sult@erh.com>; Mon, 21 Feb 2005 09:28:10 -0800 (PST)
Delivered-To: Blueytq@correoweb.com
Received: by midterm.enoch.org (Wostfix, from userid 07150)
id 0F49F333; Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:26:38 +0100
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 12:31:38 -0500
From: "Consuelo Swanson" <Blueytq@correoweb.com>
Message-ID: <6D6AA7EB.9460535@islandnet.net>
To: sult@erh.com
Subject: cheap dv'd's, five a'dult's for one Buck
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.11 (www dot roaringpenguin dot com slash mimedefang)
X-ADDRSpamFilter: Passed, probability (0%)
X-ADDRSignature: 788930D
X-UIDL: I4K!!`RX"!<I9!!JKk!!
Status: RO

Pick 5 X'x'X D v D's for Only 1$
.


erh
 
You have over 800 messages in your pop box, could be that's your problem.
Every time the computer checks for mail it has to compare the headers of the mails in the box with the headers of the mails already downloaded.
You could try deleting all mails you already read with the dele command. If you can access the box through webmail, read the mails there and then delete them. You could also use something like twigger if you don't have the webmail option.

try zimv20's option first (it'll be faster if that's your problem ;) )

again, good luck
 
Hi Redeye

Thanks for your earlier advise, I guess that tells me that things is working outside my computer, and it is Mail which is not behaving.

I have deleted all Trash and Junk mail, all mails in Send and In folder from before the problem started.

Mail is set to erase junk after a week, and I normally have 400-500 junk-mails in that folder. And around 500 mails in my In-folder, and that have so far not been a problem.
Could it be that if it is a corupted mail, it would not be erased befor one week?

I have no web-mail option, and it seems like Twigger is not for www.addr.com
I will see if I can find something like Twigger for www.addr.com and let you know.

Best
erh
 
erh said:
Thanks for your earlier advise, I guess that tells me that things is working outside my computer, and it is Mail which is not behaving.
Click to expand...
no problem, your pop box works fine indeed.
erh said:
Could it be that if it is a corupted mail, it would not be erased befor one week?
Click to expand...
Do not quite understand this.
A corrupted mail in you inbox on your computer will probably not cause that much problem. A corrupted mailbox on your computer could, try zimv20's option.
Mail leaves your mail on the server for 1 week by default. You could try to set this option (in mail's prefs somewhere - not at my mac) to delete the mail from server ones it had it downloaded. And then try to sit it (the fetching) out.

Sidenote: When i talk about deleting mail, i always refer to the server side.

Good luck
 
I have manually deleted all mail on the server until the date before the problem started. The numbers of mail is below 700.

I have erased all mail on my Mac in Junk and Delete folders and all mail in Send and In folder from until before the problem started as well.

I was thinking maybe go around the Apple Store and see what they can do.
I don't have AppleCare but maybe they will help anyway.

But is this problem just a bug in the software / my handling, or is it a virus ?
 
I deleted everything in the m.box for: Junk, Deleted messages', Draft, Out, and all massages in Sent, In Mail, until the days before the problem.

erh
 
erh said:
I deleted everything in the m.box for: Junk, Deleted messages', Draft, Out, and all massages in Sent, In Mail, until the days before the problem.
Click to expand...
wow, you just don't want to be helped, do you?
 
Hi zimz20

I just tried to move out the INBOX.mbox from my POP folder in the Mail folder. I placed it on my desktop.
I relaunched Mail, I see no old message (as expected) in my In folder.
The fetching will start right away and go on for 1 sec. and stops. with no new mails.
When I then push Get Mail bottom, it will keeps on spinning and never stop, and without any new mail.

erh
 
So. what now ?

I will try set-up Mail on my friend' Mac with my spec. and see if everything is running.

But I'm very open for suggestions.

erh
 
This sounds similar to a problem I have had for a while. From what I gather, you have a laptop. When you sleep and leave Mail open, if it tries to fetch mail as it is set to sleep (when you close the lid) then when you wake the computer, it still tries to fetch the mail but can't since your internet connection is not established. What I have done is opened the Activity Viewer in Mail (Cmd-0, the number not the letter) and stopped whatever is going. Manually get new mail (or wait for it to sync on its own) and you should be fine. I was force-quitting Mail for the longest time before I found this.

Hope this helps.

cpjakes
 
erh said:
But I'm very open for suggestions.
Click to expand...

re-read this entire thread, try every solution or hint provided.
EDIT: cpjakes is offering insight, don't read over the previous post!

I would delete as much mail as possible via telnet (it will take a while but read headers and leave only essential mail).
You could also try to get your mail with thunderbird. Let thunderbird delete all the mail in the box, you can read it in thunderbird anyway. And then go back to mail. See what is does.

If you keep on having problems: buy a PII, install Win98se and use Outlook Express as your mail handler. :p ;)
 
I do work on a 12" PowerBook, but it's not the sleeping thing going on, or no connection.
I constantly re-launching Mail and have to force quit again.

The Activity viewer can't stop the the fetching action then I first push the Get Mail bottom. It will continue until I Force quiet.

erh
 
Hi Redeye

Good news is that Thunderbird is working.
Bad news, Mail is not.

I have erased all the 700 junk-mail on server.

erh
 
next step:
in ~/Library/Mail, "delete" all POP-* folders and try Mail.app again. by "delete", i mean just move them to another folder. if Mail.app works, then one of your mbox's (other than INBOX) is corrupted. if it doesn't work, then the mail files themselves are fine, and you should move to...

the step after:
in ~/Library/Preferences, "delete" com.apple.mail.plist . This will "delete" all your Mail.app accounts. go into Mail.app and reconfigure your account(s), one by one. i believe Mail.app will refind your messages after the account is configured. try d/loading mail again. if it works, then your plist file was corrupt. if it doesn't, then go to...

the step after that:
in System Preferences / Accounts, create a new user account. in the new account, start Mail.app and configure it with your mail account. if it all works, then the problem still resides somewhere in your main user account's configs / preferences / storage. if it doesn't work, then most likely either Mail.app itself is corrupted, or the problem lies outside the system.
 
Well, problem solved.

zimv20 first step was it.

After taking all mbox' out of the folder Mail worked. One by one I replaced each mbox, until only "MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded" was the only one missing to be replaced, and Mail was still working, so I guess that's the sinner.

I appreciate your time and help
and a great forum

Thanks
erh
 
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