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Apple Mail Problems As I seem to be accumulating information about Apple Mail, I thought it would be a good idea to store some notes of problems and suggested cures here. Note: as with any software problems, the first things to try are: 1. Quit and relaunch the application (Mail in this case). 2. If that doesn't fix it, reboot your Mac. 3. Obviously make sure that your modem/router is working correctly and connected reliably to your ISP's server. Q. "I can receive OK but when I try to send it tells me "The attempt to read data from the server "smtp.wanadoo.co.uk" failed." If I quit and re-launch they are sent straight away! I've tried rebooting the Mac a couple of times but it hasn't helped. Now I can't send at all! Tried quitting and even tried rebooting the Mac - still won't send! I'll keep trying." A. I checked their support pages, and the first thing I noticed is they say to use smtp.orangehome.co.uk (I guess they bought wanadoo?). However, I also tried telneting to both the orangehome version and the wanadoo version, and neither responded. So that makes me draw a few possible conclusions. 1: their mail servers are unreliable right now and are going down periodically. Mail.app tends to cache SMTP server info, so if it fails to contact the server once, it can be difficult to get it to try again from scratch unless you quit and relaunch. As such, if it hit the server while it was down, it may decide it is always down and refuse to try until you have done your quit/relaunch cycle. 2: the wanadoo version is incorrect and as such unreliable, see above for that outcome. Try changing to the orangehome version and see what happens. 3: Maybe I can't reach them because they block off network traffic. You (or I guess really your brother as you say this is relayed for him), are not on the wanadoo network while trying to send email. Although that wouldn't explain why sometimes it works for him, as I would think that is an all or nothing, unless he is first trying off network and getting the error, Mail.app is holding that outcome as in #1, and then he moves to a connection on network, quits/relaunch, tries again, and it goes thru... and now it isn't working full time because he is off network full time. (of course, off network blocking my just explain why I can't reach them and have nothing to do with your brother's problem). 4: Something else entirely is going wrong, such as he has the port set wrong in the SMTP Server settings. The wanadoo support pages don't seem to indicate the need to use an alternate port nor even SMTP Authentication, so assuming I've looked at the correct pages, he should leave the server port set for port 25, and set Authentication to None... the fact that they don't require authentication does lead to #3 being possibly correct, as it isn't unusual for mail providers that don't require authentication of any kind to also block all traffic from outside their own network. Mail Running Slow Q. I've been using Apple Mail for a couple of years, and have the same recurring problem: I click on a mailbox to open it, and then wait for anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute for it to actually *open.* None of my mailboxes contains more than 800 pieces of email (I regularly archive old stuff). All of them have been rebuilt at one time or another. Nothing appears to help. I did buy a new MacBook about a year ago and when I first started using Mail on the new machine, it seemed to speed up the process. That lasted for about a month, and now it's back to being incredibly slow. I have quit other programs that are also runnng (generally have Word, iCal and Safari running at the same time) and that has not made a difference. This is incredibly frustrating. Any ideas appreciated! Jeannette OK, I Googled it (don't know why I didn't do that first, when this behavior is driving me around the bend). Found the solution and I wish I'd done this months ago: http://danwarne.com/is-apple-mail-running-slow-speed-it-up/ http://www.hawkwings.net/2007/03/01/a-faster-way-to-speed-up-mailapp/ Both these sites have subsequently gone but you can still read the archived page. Click HERE.   Back to index page Copyright ©2007 Glodark Updated August 8, 2016 This file may be downloaded for private and personal use but NO part of it may be published in any form without the prior permission of the author. This Web Site was produced entirely on a Macintosh computer