Problems w/ SpamSieve, Mail.app & IMAP accounts

I’ve used SpamSieve with Entourage on the Mac with POP accounts successfully for a number of years. I just switched to Mail.app using IMAP accounts on a MacBook Pro running Leopard and I’m having problems.

I have turned off Mail’s Junk Email filtering and I have SpamSieve sending spam directly to the Trash on the server. When I first launch SpamSieve in the morning or when I wake my MacBook the inbox fills with email (50 to 100 email, mostly spam) and SpamSieve doesn’t move it to the trash - it stays in the inbox. As additional email arrives, SpamSieve does filter it correctly, but it never handles the initial batch still sitting in my inbox correctly. Even when I select the emails and run Apply Rules it doesn’t filter and move the spam to the trash. If I select one or just a couple at a time and run Apply Rules it will filter and move the spam, but this defeats the purpose of having automated filtering.

Why is this not working?

I’ve never heard of such a problem. Obviously, there should be no difference between applying the rules to one message or to multiple messages. Please send me the file:

/Users/<username>/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist

so that I can check your rule setup. Also, does the SpamSieve application launch when you receive the initial batch of messages? Do you see any error messages from Mail or SpamSieve in the All Messages section of the Console application?

Please check the folders:

/Library/Mail/Bundles/
/Users/<username>/Library/Mail/Bundles/

Do you have any Mail plug-ins installed besides SpamSieve’s?

I’ve sent you the file you requested. I check the locations you listed and I don’t have any other plugins installed. I"ll send you the Console log from this morning.

What happens is I’ll launch Mail, then SpamSieve will launch, my inbox will fill-up and SpamSieve will color-code, but not move the spam to the Trash as per the rule. As SpamSieve continues to run, it will filter and move spam to the Trash - it just doesn’t handle the initial batch after launching or waking up.

You sent me some log messages from the Console, not the MessageRules.plist file, but that’s OK because looking at the log I think the rules are fine. It appears that SpamSieve is correctly filtering the messages but that Mail is encountering an error when trying to move them to the spam mailbox. For example, this line:

4/17/08 7:10:58 AM Mail[156] rejected messages (rule SpamSieve), count 119

means that SpamSieve found 119 spam messages but that Mail couldn’t move them to the spam mailbox (in this case, the Trash on the server). It’s hard to know whether the problem is with Mail’s database file or with the server. You could try creating a new mailbox called “Spam” (either on the server or On My Mac) and set the SpamSieve rule in Mail to move the messages there, instead.

Also, it’s probably not related, but you could uninstall the file:

/Library/Contextual Menu Items/DocumentsToGoXCM.plugin

Mail is having trouble loading this, either because the file is damaged or because it’s PowerPC-only and you’re running on an Intel-based Mac.

I haven’t yet set up a Spam mailbox - I’m trying to avoid a two-step process (I’d rather not have to manually delete spam).

One thing I forgot to point out yesterday (and it happened again this morning) is when I first use Mail in the morning and there is a large amount of spam, SpamSieve appears to copy the spam email to the Trash, but it leaves the original spam in the Inbox. The spam in the Inbox is color-coded, the spam that is copied to the Trash is uncoded. When I go through and manually select the spam in the Inbox and use Apply Rules, SS moves the spam to the Trash and I end up with one color-coded and one uncoded copy of each piece of spam.

After this initial batch (usually in the morning) SS runs fine the rest of the day and just moves the spam to the Trash (no copies) and the spam is color-coded. Could this have something to do with my mail server? Maybe after I time-out and then log back in, there is so much spam that SS tries to move the spam before the server can authenticate the user and rejects the moves. Any suggestions?

OK, but if you want to delete the spam, anyway, why bother moving it to another mailbox on the server? You could simply move it to the trash “On My Mac.”

To be clear, it’s Mail, not SpamSieve, that moves the messages. It’s just as if you had created a rule in Mail that moves messages from a certain address to a certain mailbox. Except, instead of a “a certain address” the criterion is “SpamSieve thinks it’s spam.”

Perhaps.

What makes you think that the connection is timing out?

I don’t think so. SpamSieve doesn’t do anything on its own. The sequence of events is: Mail applies the rules, SpamSieve decides whether the message is spam, (if so) Mail moves the message (probably in a separate IMAP connection). None of this is related to how many messages there are.

You could use the Mailbox > Rebuild command on the source and destination mailboxes.

I still suggest trying a different destination mailbox.