After reset Mail hangs w/spinning ball on "Reading table of contents"

This problem is on a 17" monitor Power PC G4, 256mb DDR SDRAM.iMac, half ball bottom, with Mail, with Systems 10.3.9
After Reset, Mail is hanging with the spinning beach ball on "Reading table of contents." Quite a few emails are being retrieved and placed in the Dock before the hang, and Mail responds to mouse commands up to the "hang." Then a Force Quit is the only way to proceed. Other programs run OK, with Mail "hung."
The reason for the Reset is that my daughter reads "fan fiction," and can go through a hundred pages in an hour, and the computer gets so plugged up that it takes FIVE MINUTES to retrieve, then display another Safari window. Empty Cache does not help. So, to get things back to normal, a reset is required. Something went wrong on this reset.
This happened once before, possibly with OS-X 10.2, and I was advised to delete a file somewhere deep in Systems, and Mail apparently made a "new" file and all was fine from then on. My "guess" is that Mail then makes a new "table of contents."
Anybody know what file to delete? Or any other advice? At the moment, I am getting Mail with another IMac, with System 10.2
iMac 17" "half ball bottom" 1 GHZ PowrPc G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hello Jean.
When you use the term "reset", are you referring to a
computer restart?
On this PowerPC with 10.3.9, what is the hard drive
capacity and available free space?
If the problem Inbox mailbox is for a POP type
account, with the Mail.app quit and using the Finder
go to Home > Library > Mail > this account named
folder (named by the user name and incoming mail
server for the account) > INBOX.mbox.
Move the INBOX.mbox to the Desktop.
Launch Mail and if successful, a new (and empty)
INBOX.mbox will be created automatically by Mail
within this account named folder when receiving the
next message with this account.
This should allow the Mail.app to function properly
again while working on the old INBOX.mbox move to the
Desktop to recover the existing messages.
Control-click on the old INBOX.mbox moved to the
Desktop and at the menu window that appears, select
Show Package Contents.
List the package content file names and size of
each here.
I have had the same problem as Jean - did what you advised and now find mail runs find but need to rescue the old mail.
This is the package content of my old inbox:
content index 36 kb
content_index-computername.local-372 10.9 MB
info.plist 4 kb
mbox 939.1 MB
tableofcontents 1.5 MB
hope you can help me...
x
habibi

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Mail hangs with spinning ball

I've spent the better part of today trying to get my Mail.app to work. Everytime I launch mail I get the spinning ball. I use an IMAP account.
I have deleted the entire Mail folder, com.apple.mail.plist and even started from scratch.
I have tried it on another machine, still the spinning ball
I tried Thunderbird and it works, no problem.
I tried setting Mail.app to just get headers and still it hangs.
It seems to hang while "Adding Message"
Any other ideas
Thanks.
Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Thomas
some users here make a point of erasing the HD to zeros & Installing the os from scratch on any new mac they buy. Admittedly a full re-install is rarely needed....but sometimes it's the quickest/most practical way to resolve a problem.
I'll hazard a guess here - & suggest that the mail issues might be related to importing the mail from panther.... there are a large number of threads relating to this. If the mbp hasn't been personalised/apps installed too much ( in 2 hrs) I'll venture that re-installing may well be your easiest option - but don't import the info from the Panther machine at this stage. ( that option is always available at any time using Migration Assistant in Applications/Utilities/ )
For setting up Mail manually, see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106683
Having said that - personally I'd try deleting the Mail account that you imported & quitting Mail. Then deleting the file com.apple.Mail.plist which can be found in /Home/Library/Preferences/ then start Mail & set up manually as in the above link.
* Note that you will lose all messages,settings etc in Mail - but I figure since Mail isn't working, that's OK?. Also - Only do this if the original panther messages are still safely on the old iMac *
If you find that Mail works ok after this - Wait before you import the old messages from Panther & check out the various threads about it here, or post your own question. Ernie Stamper knows this stuff inside & out.

MAIL SBBOD 'reading Table o contents' 4evr. Have restarted manytimes.

I had shut down computer and restarted. Now MAIL almost opens, but won't quite settle down, unuseable cuz busy 'Reading Tafle of Contents' and Spinning Beach Ball of Death (SBBOD) constantly. Unuseable.
This has happened many times in past but allways finally Mail would be ok if I Forced Quit, then started and restarted once or several times.
But II've done that now many times today and still Mail won't settle down and be useable.
I would like to know the cause and solution, cuz it is beyond frustrating.
I will be thanking you, now in advance, and later when solved

Maybe this is SOLUTION which will help others and remind myself. Stumbled upon it. Tried repeatedly, maybe thirty times yesterday to use mail, but it kept on spinning and saying 'Reading Table of Contents' and was totally unresponsive and had to force quit and try again.
Then I realized:
I have keep too many open emails on desktop and doc. Sort of as a visual reminder to attend to them. But the number was too many. I started deleting some, first from the Dock. Soon, mail was responding.
I even had way to many 'Viewer Windows' open, on dock and desktop.
Won't say how many, cuz embarassing. Let my folly help others.
So, this is probably the solution, and I am awarding my own darn self the highly coveted appelation of THE SOLVER.

Mail stuck in "Reading table of contents" mode

Hello,
Background: I recently upgraded from prehistoric OS 9.2.1 to OS X. I used a DVD version bought on eBay from a non-Apple source. I set up Mail 1.3.4 as directed. It all seemed to work well for a while.
Problem: I started noticing trouble when I began importing my old e-mails from the program I used to use, Outlook Express 5 (now operating in Classic). Some of the folders would import, but others would not.
OK, I can live without some of those e-mails, but now, a worse problem has arisen. First, when I open Mail from the dock, the mailbox doesn't appear. I soon realized that File>New Viewer Window remedied that, though I thought it was strange. But once I bring up that new window, the Mail application is permanently stuck in "Reading table of contents" mode, with the little spinning circle of lines at the right going on forever.
I can click around -- it's not completely frozen. It just won't retreive mail. When I try to quit, Command-Q doesn't work. I have to force-quit.
I've been making do with webmail, making sure to delete all excess spam e-mails.
Accounts: In case this helps, it is a POP-type account. Within that are two mailboxes. It has a .pop outgoing server and .stmp incopming server.
What should I do??
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quaco

Just bumping this up. I'm afraid I am still having this problem.

Mail spinning, won't delete, "reading table of contents", etc. help?

First off, forgive my un-tech-ness.
I recently went away and before I left I
set my Mail Prefs to disable "remove
copy from server" since I would be using
a different computer and didn't want to
risk losing any mail. Was able to retrieve my
mail remotely with no problem. However, when I
returned home, even though I immediately changed
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next time, same problems with hanging up and duplicate
messages all still there. Oddly (maybe not, I don't know
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Not sure, but the mailbox appears to have become corrupt (maybe “overstuffed”, see below).
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, and ensuring that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a copy of Inbox), try this:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/.
3. Locate INBOX.mbox and move it to the Desktop.
4. Open Mail. A new empty INBOX.mbox will automatically be created within the account folder, and this will allow you to continue using Mail normally while trying to solve the problem.
Although INBOX.mbox appears to be a file, it’s actually a special kind of folder (a package) that contains several files. Ctrl-click on INBOX.mbox and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu to see the files it contains. Of these files, mbox is the most important and is where all your messages are stored. What’s the size of that file? Depending on its size, you may or may not be able to directly import it back into Mail in the next step.
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If Mail doesn’t let you select INBOX.mbox in step 5 because it’s a package instead of a plain folder, rename INBOX.mbox to just INBOX (i.e. remove the .mbox suffix) so that it becomes a normal folder, and try again. You cannot do this directly in the Finder because removing a suffix by normal means causes the Finder to hide the suffix instead of renaming the file. To remove the suffix from the name, you must do File > Get Info (⌘I) on the file and change the name there.
Do with the imported mail whatever you wish. You may move the messages anywhere you want and get rid of the imported mailboxes afterwards, but take a look at the following article first:
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If all is well and you don’t miss anything, the files on the Desktop can be deleted, although you may want to keep them for a while, just in case.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder (i.e. /Users/username). Hence, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder (i.e. /Users/username/Library).

PlzHelp: MAIL stald wont stop "READING TABLE of CONTENTS" - Beachbalodeth

From time to timme thiis happens.
Trying open Mail applic as usual, but suddenly MAIL stalled wont won't completely open ready for use cuz beachballodeth spins without ceasing & main window Mail reads "READING TABLE of CONTENTS" -
Have opened and shut down Mail applic repeatedly to no avail.
Have shut down mac and restarted repeeeeeately. still Mail stals reading tableOcontents, nonresponsive, ball spinning.
Will appreaciate any hep cuz now Mail is deth to me.
thanx

Well, finally seems to have solved itself again... after
I restarted Mail applic a few more times.
I had a lot of letters open so they took a while to pop up to my screen or dock.I kept on hitting 10 for Expose to show only Mail windows on screen. Mail still stuck 'reading table of contents'.
Finally when the opportunity struck i managed to place the cursor over the red dot to close each unnecessaryily openn letter annd or window. Heck, i closed just aboout all of them till the only thing remaining was my Mail applic main viewer window. And it was finally working.
So that's my happy ending.
Don't have to sweat giving my an answer now,
Unless someone wants to write mme an explanntion of what happened. For that I'll leave this question still open for a while longer.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19132
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After reset Mail hangs w/spinning ball on "Reading table of contents"

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