mail.app loses mail out of inbox

brentg

While doing some upgrades from OS9 to OS 10.3 on some of our faculty computers, we noticed that mail.app was not keeping mail that came into the inbox on a consistent basis. The mail would be popped properly, but then sometime later on a mail check, mail would stop being downloaded and would erase all the mail in the inbox.



The machines that we did this on were over-the-top upgrades, leaving their System 9 folder in place, or ones where we did a clean install, then copied over their System 9 folder to be able transfer email from their System 9 backup. Not my choice of upgrade path, but the users who have had this happen believe they still needed Classic apps such as WordPerfect, so they have to have a System 9 folder somewhere. We have copied the mail folder and recovered the mail inboxes on occasion, but it seems to happen so inconsistenly we can't spend all the time recovering mail. We also belive the mail disappearance has something to do with NAV 9 when it scans incoming mail.



Our current thought is uninstalling NAV 9 and see if that works. We have done so, but are waiting for user feedback to see if this stops the problem. If that doesn't stop the problem, we will create a "clean" System 9 folder and place it on the Macs in question, deleting the original.



Two questions for the forum--does our above plan seem reasonable, and can anyone think of any reason why this may be happening in the first place.

karrick

I'm not too sure if the Classic mode has anything to do with your problem, unless you were simulataneously running a Classic email client program that accessed your email folders in your Mac OS X ~home/Library/Mail folder.



I don't know all the features that NAV has, but if it is configured to scan your email for spam or virii, then that could be a culprit.



Also, Mail.app has a great email spam checker. Email will show up in your box as Mail.app downloads the information from your POP3 server in one thread, while the spam checker seems to run in an independent thread. As the email starts pouring into your Inbox, the spam checker thread could be checking it for spam, and moving spam candidates into the Junk mailbox.



Also, the user-porgrammable rules could be harvesting email as they arrive and shuffling them into various folders. You might want to investigate that possibility.



If all of that fails, then I recommend purchasing 3,000 sq ft of aluminum foil, and coating the walls, ceiling, and perhaps even the floor of your offices with a layer of protective coating against alien hackers. There is a big cover up and space aliens are known to hack into our computers, stealing our email to look for credit card numbers, so they can purchase the total ab workout videos and study our human culture. I'd be careful if I were you...



Anyway, humor aside, I hope you are able to figure this out. De-installation of NAV may prove helpful as it may be stealing emails to search for virii.



Karrick

brentg

Thanks! It turns out it is NAV causing the problems, possibly in conjunction with the older system folder, but since we uninstalled NAV9, no problems have been reported. I was getting ready for the aluminum foil trick however....



brent

karrick

Quote:

Originally posted by brentg

Thanks! It turns out it is NAV causing the problems,

NAV doesn't have the best track record on "help, my computer is broken!" forums... \ Perhaps this is why Symantec is withdrawing from the Mac market.



Anyway, speculation aside, I'm glad you isolated the problem. And thanks for letting the rest of us know what the culprit was. This way we can help others with that same knowledge.



Cheers,

Karrick