Mail Issue

[Markverhyden]

Haven't seen that rebuild process before, thanks for the info I shall add it to my notebook for future repairs. So do you think rebuilding that database would fix the issue then? Does it delete the emails in the process?

All that really does is rebuild the index. So no emails are deleted. Personally I doubt that it will have any impact on the issue you are dealing with but it does not hurt to try. It's for addressing things like Mail taking forever to perform operations like opening or downloading emails. Of course the standard rule applies - always backup before doing any work.

 

[Chrisb41]

All that really does is rebuild the index. So no emails are deleted. Personally I doubt that it will have any impact on the issue you are dealing with but it does not hurt to try. It's for addressing things like Mail taking forever to perform operations like opening or downloading emails. Of course the standard rule applies - always backup before doing any work.

Back up already done so no problem there. I shall give it a try. I just manually added a new contact into the address book changed the name same issue, put in my email address into the contact that works fine, put the other one in same issue. So it doesn't care about the contact at all because I loaded the affected email into another contact they had, same issue again. It is just the email address.

 

[trevm999]

Also, why migrate when its likely to migrate back in the same issue? I'd go with a system reinstall before trying something like that.

I'd say it depends on the customer and situation. If customer is someone who wants things EXACTLY how they were before, then a migration is a good idea. MS Office could be an issue too, If the have Office 2011 and have not kept the product key, then a reinstall is not the best idea. He has already determined that the issue does not appear in a new user account, so I would just try a migration. I would just use Migration Assistant if this was day one of it being looked at in shop, however this was first posted on Wednesday, so a manual migration is in order. I would still try to bring over as much as possible, but I think the address book should be exported and imported instead of just copied over. If the customer said they were going to be gone for a few weeks, I would still try Migration Assistant since it doesn't require much hands on time. However, the customer might be calling you soon to see what is taking so long, so sometimes it is best to do the reload and manual migration to be sure (I'd still try to use migration assistant for the applications). And I would check after bringing back in certain things to make sure the issue hasn't reappeared.

 

[Markverhyden]

Back up already done so no problem there. I shall give it a try. I just manually added a new contact into the address book changed the name same issue, put in my email address into the contact that works fine, put the other one in same issue. So it doesn't care about the contact at all because I loaded the affected email into another contact they had, same issue again. It is just the email address.

That's really strange. Are the 4 emails from the same domain? Also, do the emails produce the same error if manually typed into a new message?

 

[Markverhyden]

I'm far from a CLI wizard but maybe you can use something like GREP to search the user's root directory. Look for the affected email addresses in all files. Maybe there is some .plist file that is causing this.

 

[Chrisb41]

I'm far from a CLI wizard but maybe you can use something like GREP to search the user's root directory. Look for the affected email addresses in all files. Maybe there is some .plist file that is causing this.

All different domains like gmail, yahoo and bigpond.

 

[Chrisb41]

I'd say it depends on the customer and situation. If customer is someone who wants things EXACTLY how they were before, then a migration is a good idea. MS Office could be an issue too, If the have Office 2011 and have not kept the product key, then a reinstall is not the best idea. He has already determined that the issue does not appear in a new user account, so I would just try a migration. I would just use Migration Assistant if this was day one of it being looked at in shop, however this was first posted on Wednesday, so a manual migration is in order. I would still try to bring over as much as possible, but I think the address book should be exported and imported instead of just copied over. If the customer said they were going to be gone for a few weeks, I would still try Migration Assistant since it doesn't require much hands on time. However, the customer might be calling you soon to see what is taking so long, so sometimes it is best to do the reload and manual migration to be sure (I'd still try to use migration assistant for the applications). And I would check after bringing back in certain things to make sure the issue hasn't reappeared.

I have plenty of time for this repair, customer knew it would be a tricky one. So my plan of attack now is if I can not find any affected files in a reasonable amount of time just manually transfer the data to the new account and ask the customer what they would like copied across and configured.

 

[Markverhyden]

This will be a bit time consuming but it may be of interest. Basically searching the .plist files in the user directory for the effected email address and then piping it to a text file for you to peruse. You can run it for a working email as well and compare the hits to see if a particular .plist if the culprit. Open a terminal window.

cd ~
sudo grep -r --include *.plist "email@somedomain.com" /Users/username/* > whatevernameyouwant.txt

Personally, though, I would probably just start migrating over to a new account.

 

[Chrisb41]

This will be a bit time consuming but it may be of interest. Basically searching the .plist files in the user directory for the effected email address and then piping it to a text file for you to peruse. You can run it for a working email as well and compare the hits to see if a particular .plist if the culprit. Open a terminal window.

cd ~
sudo grep -r --include *.plist "email@somedomain.com" /Users/username/* > whatevernameyouwant.txt

Personally, though, I would probably just start migrating over to a new account.

Ok it found a plist file within the users library in the mail data folder under syncedpreferences. I removed the plist and restarted the mail application. Same issue it rebuilt the Plist file with the same email. Where would it be getting the data to make that plist file?

 

[Chrisb41]

Well I give up, manual migration it is. Thank you everyone for your help. Feel free to post any other ideas if you have them.

 

[Markverhyden]

Ok it found a plist file within the users library in the mail data folder under syncedpreferences. I removed the plist and restarted the mail application. Same issue it rebuilt the Plist file with the same email. Where would it be getting the data to make that plist file?

Only one file? When I ran that on my MBP I had at least 15 or 20 .plist files with my email. But I do have Calendar and Address Book from my server as well as email. And many of the hits were in the ~/Library/Container.

As far as the file showing up again. .plist files are used by OS X for various configuration tasks. So if you remove the file the OS will automatically rebuild it when the app or background services are launched.

 

[Chrisb41]

Only one file? When I ran that on my MBP I had at least 15 or 20 .plist files with my email. But I do have Calendar and Address Book from my server as well as email. And many of the hits were in the ~/Library/Container.

As far as the file showing up again. .plist files are used by OS X for various configuration tasks. So if you remove the file the OS will automatically rebuild it when the app or background services are launched.

Yeah I know what a .plist does but its just weird that it loaded the faulty data back into it and didn't load a fail safe version.

 

[trevm999]

Yeah I know what a .plist does but its just weird that it loaded the faulty data back into it and didn't load a fail safe version.

Perhaps the problem is not with that plist file

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Yeah I know what a .plist does but its just weird that it loaded the faulty data back into it and didn't load a fail safe version.

A newly generated plist file is not going to regenerate faulty data. If you think that is the case, you really don't know what how a plist file operates. Just like markverhyden said, you are probably overlooking 15 or 20 other mail/calander/address book associated plist files.