Mail Crashes :-(

I’ve been a happy SpamSieve user for over a year (but using Claris Emailer in Classic). I’ve just made the jump to an iLife ™, but am now experiencing frequent Mail.app crashes, almost every time it downloads mail :frowning:

Everything had been running smoothly for the first few days. I exported 24,000 email messages using Emailchemy and successfully imported them into Mail. I setup 6 mail accounts, all POP accounts and received and sent mail OK.

My problems started yesterday, around the time I installed MailTags and updated to SpamSieve 2.6.3. I’ve uninstalled MailTags (maybe another day) and now I want to prove that SpamSieve isn’t the cause of my problems. Is it just as simple as turning off the SpamSieve Mail Rules?

I’m not too familiar with Mail, but have read plenty recently about its clunkiness and how it is not a Pro Mail application. But, I am not a Pro user and I was just getting to like it, until it started crashing.

Does anyone have any silver bullet Mail troubleshooting tips? I’ve tried deleting and rebuilding the Envelope Index file (in ~/Library/Mail), but this didn’t work.

I can usually start up Mail and tweak the Account settings in Preferences to disable the account that is causing the crash. But that means I don’t get any email from that account. Any tips?

Thanks

Mike

I want to prove that SpamSieve 2.6.3 isn’t the cause of my problems. Is it just as simple as turning off the SpamSieve Mail Rules?

I turned off the SpamSieve rule in Mail, but Mail still crashed (downloading a spam mail). I guess my suspicion about the SpamSieve 2.6.3 release was unfounded.

Any suggestions what I should do to troubleshoot this crash?

Mike

Generally speaking, yes, but to be absolutely sure you could remove the SpamSieve.mailbundle file from:

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

and then relaunch Mail.

If a program is crashing, the first thing to do is to look at the crash log in the folder:

/Users/<you>/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/

If you e-mail it to me I’ll have a look.

In your latest e-mail you report that it’s crashing even without the SpamSieve plug-in installed. I don’t think the crash log is conclusive, but the crashes seem to be related to rules that move messages to a different mailbox. It’s also crashed several times evaluating a rule condition that checks whether the message’s sender is in an Address Book smart group. So, you could try disabling those rules and/or restoring the files in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/

from a backup.

The crashes seem to be related to rules that move messages to a different mailbox. It’s also crashed several times evaluating a rule condition that checks whether the message’s sender is in an Address Book smart group

Thanks for this analysis. I am really grateful to you.

I was at a complete dead end and was thrashing wildly, with new user accounts and Mail preferences files. I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to Address Book and Mail. I had created some Smart Groups in Address Book, with exactly the same names as some existing (non-smart) groups.

For the moment, I’ve renamed the smart groups and made sure my Mail rules only use the non-smart groups. I’ll let you know if changing my Mail rules solves the crashing problems.

Thanks again for your great support :slight_smile:

Mail Crashes (No more :slight_smile:

I’ll let you know if changing my Mail rules solves the crashing problems.

A whole weekend’s worth of spam across 6 accounts and no crashes :slight_smile:

Looks like the cause of the problem were my Mail rules which used smart Address Book groups. Nothing to do with SpamSieve at all.

Thanks again Michael, for your prompt replies and great support :slight_smile: