SL Mail problem: IMAP account locks server mailbox

[ruthaylett]

I've just moved to Snow Leopard and have found that my main Mail IMAP account is now locking the server mailbox. This means I can't access the mailbox via Pop from any other machine (such as at home) and the webmail interface will only let me read but not delete mails.

I've checked via Mail Preferences that the account is set to Manual Updates (as was its predecessor, when it worked). I assume this setting is just not working as I can see the account is still reading mail automatically.

I thought of deleting the account and setting it up again but worry that the warning message about losing all mail associated with this account would mean all my local folders would be zapped. So my temporary fix is to deactivate the account and set up a POP version instead.

Any one else have this problem? Anyone know how to solve it?

 

[ruthaylett]

Two things that didn't work

To solve this problem i tried two things.

1. Rebuild the Mailbox.
This executed so quickly I wondered whether it had actually done anything. It didn't solve the problem.

2. Get rid of the preferences for Mail and set the IMAP mailbox up again from scratch.
This didn't work either: the new mailbox behaved exactly like the old one and though set for manual reads of new mail carried on updating automatically and carried on locking the mailbox.

 

[ruthaylett]

The work round

Setting the account to access the server once every hour (the longest interval available) means that it only locks the server once an hour. This is the best work round I can think of.