mail problem

[andyland]

I am having some probs with mail on my g5 isight ppc.
Everytime I go to mail my cpu runs at 100%.
I can still retrieve mail but it will not allow me to delete my emails.
I have to force quit mail and everytime I reopen mail the emails return.
I have been using my web mail through my service provider to view my emails and have no probs there.
This is my first mac, and I am at a loss to know what to do to solve the problem.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

andy.

 

[mad jew]

When did this start happening? There may be a corrupt attachment file so maybe use your webmail to find all attachments that arrived about the time this started and manually remove them from there.

 

[andyland]

mail probs

thanks for your reply,

the prob first appeared last week and i rang my service provider and deleted all my emails.
I also viewed all the emails on that day through my web mail and had no probs doing so.
I received an email that day from another mac user who had no probs viewing it. It was not a large attachment, 1.1mb, but it will not load.
I tried stopping it but it kept trying to download and now appears 5 times in my inbox.

thanks andy

 

[mad jew]

So have you removed the new attachment from webmail? I reckon it's pretty safe to narrow this problem down to either a PLIST or something in your Mail folder (in your Library).

I guess a good place to start might be to close Mail, find a file named com.apple.mail.plist in your Preferences folder and drag it to the Desktop. This will lose your customised settings, but does it help? If it doesn't help, then putting this file back where you found it (you may need to replace the newly created version by the same name) will regain your old settings and put us back where we started.

 

[andyland]

mail prob

thanks for your help but alas it did not work.
i have deleted this email from my web mail.
i am also worried about leaving my mail open too long as it is still running at 100%.
even now with my mail closed my cpu is going up and down in useage.
will restart my mac as this seems to stop that.

thanks andy.

 

[mad jew]

When Mail is closed, what are the other processes driving your CPU usage up? If you create a new user account in System Preferences, do the CPU spikes carry over?

 

[andyland]

mail probs

after force quiting mail the last time i think it just took longer than normal to quit, which is why the cpu was going up and down.
tried it again and it went back to normal after force quitting.
no other process was working after quiting mail.
cpu back to normal when not using mail.
are you suggesting that i create a new user account and see if that helps?
thanks andy.

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, I thought your problem might be more widespread than just Mail but from what you're saying, maybe not (good thing). A new user account might help a little although I'm willing to bet it'll act normally from there. I guess you could try it just to confirm or deny this though.

Also, have you tried the PLIST removal thing yet?

 

[andyland]

mail probs

tried the PLIST advice but it didn't help.
will give the new account a bash.
like you i think it is more than that.
thought about putting the install disks back in but was hoping that it would be a last resort.
if all else fails i was going to subscribe to applecare next week and get them out to fix the prob.
again was leaving this as a last resort as the $260 to join was going to be spent somewhere else on the computer.

thanks andy

 

[andyland]

mail probs

went to my service provider and set up a new account.
when the details came back i realised that when i did the PLIST thing that you advised i put the wrong pop server details in.
i did the PLIST thing again with the correct details and it worked.
i am now back in business.
i am guessing that i can trash the original com.apple.mail.plist file that is on my desktop now.
thank you very much for your help.

andy

 

[mad jew]

Excellent work. Yeah, you can trash it now.

By the way, this was clearly a software problem from the beginning. AppleCare obviously covers such problems but would almost certainly be overkill. I'd get AppleCare if I thought my machine might not last the next two years (after the first free year) without a hardware problem. FWIW, I haven't bothered with AppleCare on either my iMac or iBook.

 

[andyland]

mail prob

again thank you for all your help and advice
might spend the $260 on some extra ram now.

andy

 

[mad jew]

No worries mate. Extra RAM rarely goes astray.