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Tiger Mail problem...screenshot attached

B

benpatient

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 4, 2003
1,870
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I have been getting this weird problem ever since I installed Tiger, and I can't seem to get it to go away.

The problem is those huge spaces on the "to" and "from" lines of the header info. I've had to turn the header info completely off because of it. Is anyone else having this problem, and if so, has anyone found a fix for it?

or at least a probably cause?
 

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i have no idea, but i never saw a screen shot of the new mail app, its looks great and much cleaner looking
 
i've messed with nearly every setting in Mail trying to get it to not look like this. I tried turning off/on Smart Addresses in the Viewing pane in preferences, which does change how it looks, but actually it just makes it look worse. more garbled because more info is displayed when smart addresses are turned off.

I've tried changing my view font, doing customized header detail viewing options, etc.

it just blows, in general. Mail works better now, except for this annoying bug...
 
I don't know--you can try to mess around with cleaning out the preferences, etc., but I'm guessing you didn't do a clean install of Tiger, right? If I were you, that's what I'd do.

PS. God, the new Mail looks uglier than sin. When I upgrade to Tiger, I'm going to switch to a different mail client. Any suggestions?
 
Fix

I had the same problem I trashed the mail preferences and it worked for me.

Good Luck
 
i can't do a clean install.

well, i could, but it would result in probably half a week of downtime, and that's not really an option for me.

I have quite a lot of settings in quite a lot of production software that won't easily transfer. Lots of custom postscript functions and countless plugins that I've probably forgotten how to locate and install again, I've had them so long.

I'll try the mail preferences delete and see what happens... Thanks piodiaz
 
jamdr said:
PS. God, the new Mail looks uglier than sin. When I upgrade to Tiger, I'm going to switch to a different mail client. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I completely agree... I think many others do too, so hopefully someone will skin it to at least look more like the old one, if not better...
 
jamdr said:
I don't know--you can try to mess around with cleaning out the preferences, etc., but I'm guessing you didn't do a clean install of Tiger, right? If I were you, that's what I'd do.
Click to expand...

Do you recommend clean installs for every trivial problem like this? Turns out it others have fixed it by trashing one preference file. Isn't that easier and less destructive?

I realize I'm on a bit of a crusade against clean installs -- but honestly, this is just about a worst case scenario. It's like nuking a gnat.
 
Looking at that picture, you gave me some good ideas. I'm going to make a "passwords" and "receipts" folders right now, thanks. :)
 
IJ Reilly said:
Do you recommend clean installs for every trivial problem like this? Turns out it others have fixed it by trashing one preference file. Isn't that easier and less destructive?

I realize I'm on a bit of a crusade against clean installs -- but honestly, this is just about a worst case scenario. It's like nuking a gnat.
Click to expand...
Look you can criticize everybody who's going to do a clean install but there are plenty of advantages to doing it. If you have a lot of crap on your computer that you don't want, a clean install will help. If your computer has been acting quirky, a clean install may help. Last but not least, if you want a quick initial index for Spotlight, a clean install may help. Then as you copy over all your backups and reinstall your apps, Spotlight can index them on the fly.

There are plenty of people who can't do a clean install (and that is fine), but don't jump all over people who mention it. The fact of the matter is that only a clean install can really determine if a problem is the result of a bug in the OS, or if it was simply a problem created by the upgrade process.

I prefer to control my computer, not let my computer control me. Performing a clean install provides me with the most control. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

That's just my 2 cents.
 
by the way, that didn't fix it.

when i tossed the mail.plist, i ended up having to re-import my mailboxes, which took about 10 minutes.

but it didn't change my problem. In fact, before I re-imported my mail folders, I looked to see if the problem was still there. I was.

and still is.

are there any fonts that this version of mail requires that the last one didn't?

i know all sorts of OS X programs seem to have their own "mandatory" fonts that aren't actually involved in what you see on-screen. For example, i disabled a non-system font that according to all of the "safe lists" out there isn't necessary for OS X operation, and i lost my terminal window. It was crazy. Terminal was open, and working, but the window would only take up about 10x10 pixels, and could not be changed. I was able to copy/paste into and out of terminal, though, so i know it was working.

Funny thing is, my terminal display font was set to Helvetica...which was active. Turned out that terminal uses some other obscure font that doesn't make sense to determine it's window size, or something like that.

I wonder if this isn't the same kind of thing. Is there an updated list of "necessary" fonts for 10.4?

because my Mail was fine in 10.3
 
3 column view?

I bought my first Mac just 3 weeks ago. I really wanted to use Mail.app, but long ago totally found that Outlook's (Entourage) 3 column view style of mail was so much more functional that using 1 column and 2 boxes that I just couldn't stand using Panther's Mail.app.

Is it at all possible to get that 3 column view in Tiger's Mail.app? I really want to be able use Spotlight to search my mail and use smart folders and the intelligent spam filtering.

Thanks....
 
Kind of off the screen look of the new Mail... But, is anyone else having problems with accessing multiple accounts with Mail? I can add 2 accounts and it works as it should. When I add a third account it adds it but never checks that new account. I deleted the second account and the third account (now the second account) began working. I copied all 3 accounts into Entourage and they all worked. Anyone else have this occur??
 
knucklehead450 said:
Kind of off the screen look of the new Mail... But, is anyone else having problems with accessing multiple accounts with Mail? I can add 2 accounts and it works as it should. When I add a third account it adds it but never checks that new account. I deleted the second account and the third account (now the second account) began working. I copied all 3 accounts into Entourage and they all worked. Anyone else have this occur??
Click to expand...

I have 5 accounts and they work just fine. Do you get any error messages?
 
No error message, just no new mail. I wasn't set on using Mail. I just wanted to try it out. I tried for 2-3 days and finally gave up. Nothing strange about the mail accounts, 3 POP accounts with RoadRunner.


I have switched to Entourage and find it slightly more polished.

Thanks
 
Fat fingers strikes again- sorry about the dupe

No error message, just no new mail. I wasn't set on using Mail. I just wanted to try it out. I tried for 2-3 days and finally gave up. Nothing strange about the mail accounts, 3 POP accounts with RoadRunner.


I have switched to Entourage and find it slightly more polished.

Thanks
 
I have exactly the same problem. Anyone have an answer yet?

I recently formatted my hard drive and did a clean install of Tiger. Everything was working fine. However after installing some new fonts, and then clicking the 'Resolve Duplicates' option in Font Book, I have exactly the same problem as benpatient. See attached screen shot. Also, although it's only a small difference, the font for the number of unread messages seems to have changed. Take a look closely where '627' is written next to the 'Film Stuff' folder.

Does anyone have a solution yet? I tried deleting the preferences file as suggested, but this didn't solve the problem. All I've managed is to hide all the header info from view.

A solution would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Matthew
 

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I solved the problem... if anyone is interested?

It's was pretty simple actually. But then it always is once you've found the solution!

Searching throgh my fonts in Font Book I discovered 'Helvetica' was disabled. Enabling it solved the Mail problem. I guess hitting 'Resolve Duplicates' after installing new fonts must have disabled Helvetica for some strange reason!

I also noticed that some of my Widgets, like the 5 day weather forecast, were using Helvetica as well.
 
Thanks

mattvick said:
It's was pretty simple actually. But then it always is once you've found the solution!

Searching throgh my fonts in Font Book I discovered 'Helvetica' was disabled. Enabling it solved the Mail problem. I guess hitting 'Resolve Duplicates' after installing new fonts must have disabled Helvetica for some strange reason!

I also noticed that some of my Widgets, like the 5 day weather forecast, were using Helvetica as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. It actually fixed a problem I had with Terminal, too.
 
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