One possible solution for 'vanished' Mail messages

May 26, '06 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

I ran into a problem with gMail and another POP provider the other day whereby POP mail would download, but fail to show up in Apple Mail. Checked permissions and all was good. In fact, I even went as far as chmoding my home directory recursively to 777 in a bid to troubleshoot the problem. It was to no avail. I then tried recreating the offending account, still to no avail.

After mucking around, Mail gave an error message saying the directory could not be written to (despite all the checks and changes made earlier). There were no readily apparent barriers to creating/modifying files/folders in the Finder (via Get Info) or in the Terminal (via ls -al). It was almost like some other permissions system was in control of the folder.

However, SubEthaEdit was able to show me the directories that were apparently not writable. I recreated all the offending directories by hand, copied in the subdirectories from the original folder, and all was fine again. Strange error.

So in summary:

Symptoms:

  1. Mail retrieves the file off the POP server, but it does not appear in the inbox.
  2. Recreating the POP account in Mail does not help.
  3. The permissions seem fine by all accounts.
  4. You start to get very frustrated...
Possible Solution:
  1. Use SubEthaEdit (or other such program that can show locked directories) to look for 'unwritable' directories (save a dummy file, and use the File: Save panel to browse your directory tree).
  2. Recreate any unwritable directories.
  3. Manually copy all the subdirectory contents from the original directory.
  4. Replace the unwritable directory with the newly-created one.
[robg adds: I would have recommended a Repair Permissions step in there somewhere. I'm publishing this mainly as an example of one way of troubleshooting and repairing an odd Mail problem -- I do not recommend it as a general step in the troubleshooting process, but if you get desperate, it may help save the day...]

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