Inaccurate "Message not downloaded from server" message

I recently started seeing error messages like the one below appearing in the body of my Mail messages right after reading new messages from the POP server at my work (a large hospital). I'm running OS 10.3.9 on a dual 2GHz PowerPC G5. None of the other Mac users in my group at work are getting this type of error message:
"The message from "Doe, John" <[email protected]> concerning “RE: New spheres” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."
I don't believe this has anything to do with our mail server at work. My account is "on-line" when I see this message, and taking it off-line and then on-line again does not correct the problem.
When I see it, this error message appears as the only text in many or all of the e-mails in my "InBox" -- and it replaces the actual text of each message -- even in messages that were previously downloaded and read successfully. I have never seen this message appear in any other mail folders -- I have only seen it in mail messages in my InBox.
This error message is clearly not accurate because when I see it in one or more emails, I can simply quit Mail and then re-start it and then I can see all of my In-Box mail messages correctly again, (without downloading anything again from the server).
I have tried deleting the mail preference file, and I have run the utility program Yasu to try to clean things up. Nothing has worked to fix this bug.
Suggestions?
Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

This is not a bug.
All email clients have limits and the recommended mailbox size limit for Jaguar or Panther Mail is 1GB and for Tiger Mail, 2GB.
This error message indicates an "overstuffed" mailbox issue which means the account's inbox mailbox has either approached or exceeded 1GB in size or the mailbox has some corruption. An "overstuffed" mailbox issue can occur at any mailbox size but is more likely to occur depending on the number and size of message attachments contained in a mailbox and especially as a mailbox approaches or exceeds 1GB in size for Jaguar or Panther Mail.
This has been eliminated with Tiger Mail since the mbox format has been improved over previous Mail.app versions but there is still a recommended mailbox size limit (2GB) with Tiger Mail.
Quit the Mail.app first and using the Finder go to Home > Library > Mail > this POP 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 a new INBOX.mbox will be created automatically by Mail within the account named folder.
This will allow the Mail.app to function properly again while working on the old INBOX.mbox moved 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 each here.
This information is required to determine the next step to take to recover the existing messages.
For future reference, since an account's Inbox mailbox is usually the most active mailbox and more prone to minor corruption over time, it is not a good idea to use an account's Inbox mailbox as the final storage location for all received messages not deleted.
Better to utilize user created "On My Mac" location mailboxes to sort received messages by category.
Before upgrading to Tiger Mail, I didn't allow any mailbox to exceed 500MB or so in size, used the Rebuild Mailbox function on the most active mailboxes on a regular basis (once a month or so depending on activity) and I never experienced an overstuffed mailbox issue.

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Message "not downloaded from server. You need to take this account online

After upgrading to 10.4.9, when I click on any of the old emails in my inbox I get the message "this message not downloaded from server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."
I can still read all email in any other mailbox.
I can read all email received after upgrading.
I appreciate any help.
G4 17 inch Mac OS X (10.4.9) 1 gb ram

You upgraded to 10.4.9 from what?
If you upgraded from Mac OS X 10.3 or earlier, the problem is that the conversion from Mail 1.x to Mail 2.x is broken. Take a look at the following thread to better understand the problem:
Help! "You need to take this account online in order to download it."
More specifically, if this is a POP account, the following procedure should allow you to fix the Inbox problem. A similar procedure should allow you to fix other mailboxes that might also be affected:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. Make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, just in case something goes wrong while trying to fix the problem. You can do this in the Finder by dragging the folder to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, for example. This is where all your mail is stored.
3. Create a new folder on the Desktop and name it however you wish (e.g. Inbox Old). It doesn’t need to have an .mbox extension.
4. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/INBOX.mbox/.
5. Move the files mbox and Incoming_Mail out of INBOX.mbox, into the Inbox Old folder just created on the Desktop. These files contain all the messages that were in the mailbox before the upgrade to Tiger, and maybe even some messages that had been deleted. mbox is the most important. Incoming_Mail may or may not be present.
6. Move any strangely-named Messages-T0x... folders to the Desktop (not into the Inbox Old folder). These folders are to be deleted after fixing the problem. They are temporary folders created during an import or an indexing process, and Mail should have deleted them when done. Their presence is a clear indication that something didn’t work as expected. If you’ve been using Mail after the conversion and have already tried to fix the problem by rebuilding the mailbox or something like that, they might contain messages that are neither in Messages proper nor in the mbox file, so keep them around until the problem is fixed.
7. Move everything else within INBOX.mbox, except the Messages folder, to the Trash.
The result of the above should be that INBOX.mbox contains the proper Messages folder only, and the Inbox Old folder on the Desktop contains the mbox and Incoming_Mail (if it exists) files only. Now, proceed as follows:
8. Open Mail.
9. The account’s Inbox should properly display in Mail as many messages as *.emlx files are in ~/Library/Mail/POP-username@mailserver/INBOX.mbox/Messages/. If that’s not the case, select the mailbox in Mail and do Mailbox > Rebuild.
10. In Mail, do File > Import Mailboxes, choose Other as the data format, and follow the instructions to import the Inbox Old folder that’s on the Desktop.
As a result of doing the above, some messages may be duplicated now. Andreas Amann’s Mail Scripts has a Remove Duplicates script that you may find useful.
Do with the imported mail whatever you wish. You may move the messages anywhere you want and get rid of the imported mailboxes afterwards.
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.
Take a look at the following article (also referenced in the thread I mentioned at the beginning of this post) to learn what you might have done before upgrading to minimize the risk of this happening, and what you may do after fixing the problem to avoid similar issues from happening in the future. DON’T do now what the article suggests, though, as that would make things worse in the current situation:
Overstuffed mailbox is unexpectedly empty
Ask for any clarifications or if you need further assistance.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder.

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It took me 4 days to figure it out but there is a solution to the problem "the messsage has not been downloaded from server" and "the message has no content".
I do not have to set up "push" accounts from yahoo or gmail and it works with my corporate email.
Apple can reach me at <Message was edited by: Host> to discuss this issue.

I'm not a computer technician, and if you were to give me a few days looking at the problem, i'm sure I or anyone else could provide a solution. I'm not too bothered about the message appearing 50% of the time as i'm usually within easy reach of a Laptop or PC or can find another method to get access to my email.
So i'm not pi**ed off that you have found a solution. I'm just trying to obtain information for a post that says "FOUND SOLUTION TO EMAIL ISSUE - "message not downloaded from server" in the Apple HELP FORUMS...

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Hello everyone,
My name is Joshua Kahley, and I am an IT technician in charge of handeling email related issues in my company. We host our own web and email server and since the I-OS 7 update we have had a problem where many messages cannot be retrieved from our email server. I confirmed with my own phone that this issue did not exist prior to I-OS 7, messages that displayed fine before were no longer be readable on I-OS 7 when i upgraded.
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I'm not sure if this is a problem that can be solved on the phone itself as I have tried changing numerous settings. Has anything changed with the way I-OS 7 handles IMAP messages that my require us to change settings on our server? No other email provider has this issue as far as I can tell; in addition, all of our customers have the same issue (they all have their email through our servers)
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Thank you for your help, that did the trick. My mail box was too large, once I emptied my trash the problem has not repeated itself. I thought I had my trash set to empty upon quiting. My Mail box was 1.6 gigs and I was trying to keep it clean by throwing old mail and junk mail away, but it built up and I did not realize it.

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First, confirm your version of OSX, and if 10.3.9, then read:
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and the important link within it of:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25812
After observing the size of this mailbox (is it the Inbox?), report that result.
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Inaccurate "Message not downloaded from server" message

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