wtf is wrong with Mail??? (Tiger)

there's this weird icon that looks like a pie next to my Inbox that appears sometimes
That is (I think) suppose to be a clock - indicating that Mail.app is busy handling that mailbox. I've seen that a few times while looking at some of the folders imported from Entourage. It seems that if I do something (e.g. marking the messages as Read) while that clock icon is present, sometimes Mail.app will go off into the weeds with high CPU usage. And when this happens, it often seems that the display of the message list is blanked out - i.e. it looks like there are no messages in that mailbox even though there are.
I have had no problem in quitting it when this happens and then the problem has gone away when I re-launch Mail.app.

Open the Connection Doctor window in Mail and see what it says.

Mail is still not stable, Eudora hates IMAP, Entourage has this scary big database that will eat all your mail if it ever gets corrupt, Thunderbird doesn't care about Addressbook...

Why in hell is there not one GUI-mail-client that would just get it right:
Use maildir for storage (adding Spotlight readiness for free), RFC-compliant implementation of both pop and imap including encrypted variants, Addressbook and LDAP integration and an overall sensible GUI.

How hard can that be ?

How hard can that be ?

LMAO, How hard? Harder than swimming accross the atlantic when you're an overweight CEO with no long-distance swimming experience.

Harder than swimming accross the atlantic when you're an overweight CEO with no long-distance swimming experience.
Before anybody asks fat_elvis what he meant, just try googling for some of the key words.
E.g.: http://www.google.com/search?q=ceo+swim+atlantic

Thank you hayne, that response had me puzzled.

Mail is still not stable, Eudora hates IMAP, Entourage has this scary big database that will eat all your mail if it ever gets corrupt, Thunderbird doesn't care about Addressbook...

Why in hell is there not one GUI-mail-client that would just get it right... I use Entourage and so do some of my clients. Yes the database is scary. Not only that, but it makes a bad joke out of incremental backups.

I agree they all have their share of problems and I would like to see improvement.

there's this weird icon that looks like a pie next to my Inbox that appears sometimes.
Does that icon have a little "!" in it? If so, it means that Mail couldn't successfully log into your mail server.
It has nothing to do with Tiger. I see that probably a couple of times per month with my ISP. Sometimes the mail server is too busy to respond in time, but Mail sends the user name and/or password anyway. Then the server misses one or the other and doesn't let Mail log in. You can manually tell Mail to check for mail in that account, and if there's no problem with your connection, the icon will go away and you'll get your mail.

It would be nice you could set Mail to leave that icon up for a few minutes and then retry the account, but I guess I'm asking too much. :(

BTW: Shift-command-N will cause Mail to check for mail in all accounts.

i've tried quitting Mail and restarting it, also restarting my computer, connection doctor says everything is ok, but i'm still not getting my mail!

i had to ssh to my account and use pine, that worked, but why is mail not working? i never had that problem with panther...

Did you read my post? It's not Mail. It's just a mis-communication with the server. Do a manual get mail (I don't have Tiger, but in Panther it's Maibox:Get New Mail:your account) and it should reconnect.

Worst application upgrade I have ever experienced from Apple. Fresh install Tiger, brand new Mail setup - no import, no 3rd part plugs, etc. Straight from the factory. Created two accounts - one to access my gmail and one to access my imap server locally on my LAN. First couple of mail checks work. Then Mail.app just stops retrieving mail. On top of that - if I try to create a new message - I am allowed to type 2-3 characters in the new window before Mail.app beeps at me and the cursor disappears and the window loses focus. Should I somehow manage to hobble together a message by contonuously refocussing the new message window and tying 2-3 chars and repeating - Mail.app refuses to send the mail. Gives no indication of failure or even activity. Just sits there.

Is this thing finished cooking?

I don't have Tiger yet so I can't respond with what I am seeing, but I had a suggestion: I wonder if its possible to move over (or extract) a Mail 1.3.11 (v622) from Panther until Apple fixes the current Mail. Probably one should back up their ~/Library/Mail/ folder just in case.

What is realy weird with this occurence of mail is that, as many people have had problems with IMAP and POP accounts, Exchange seems to be running real smoothly... which is extremely odd :confused:

I'm having this problem too -- but strangely enough, only with certain mailboxes. It gets the headers, but apparently doesn't download new mail. When I try to view a message, it says it hasn't been downloaded from the server, and I need to take this account online in order to download it. It's my only account though, and it's getting mail from other mailboxes.

The pies are, I think, a sort of circular thermometer bar showing progress of checking mail. I think.

edit:
ctwnospam said:
Did you read my post? It's not Mail. It's just a mis-communication with the server. Do a manual get mail (I don't have Tiger, but in Panther it's Maibox:Get New Mail:your account) and it should reconnect.

It's not though. Pine works (remotely, I don't have shell access on my mail server). SquirrelMail works (also remotely). Thunderbird works. The only client I have tried thus far that doesn't work is Mail.app. It was also perfectly fine until I got Tiger.

I reiterate CAlvarez's suggestion to use Mail.app's "Connection Doctor" when you have a problem sending or receiving mail. (It's in the "Window" menu)

has anyone noticed that when you get mail in tiger you dont get a count on the dock icon. Is there a way to correct that as I have grown accustomed to that

I'm getting a count. I don't know if there is a way to enable/disable that. Are you using any filters that move the mail to non-indexed folders or which mark it as read?

What is realy weird with this occurence of mail is that, as many people have had problems with IMAP and POP accounts, Exchange seems to be running real smoothly... which is extremely odd :confused:

I have been using mail with Exchange since Friday. It does seem to work well, BUT it doesn't like more then 1 image in a email. So if you click slideshow you only see 1 image! You can click left and right in the slide show but you only see little white boxes! :(

So Exchange appears to work for the "email" side of things, but the cool features (reason you would want a mac) doesn't work :(