Mail.app making excessive number of connections

I have had (as have many other folks I know) this annoying issue of Mail.app suddenly throwing up a dialog asking for my password for a mailserver. For unknown reasons (until now) sooner or later the behavior would self-correct and the password requests would cease.
Seems I've tracked this down. One of my current email providers has a hard-limit of 50 simultaneous requests per IP address. I have 4 email accounts on that server. This *always* fails. In their IMAP server log files they see:
May 4 11:06:33 server308 dovecot: imap-login: Maximum number of connections from user+IP exceeded (mail_max_userip_connections): user=<[email protected]>, method=PLAIN, rip=65.190.84.57, lip=69.65.10.232, TLS
So even though my mail check interval is set to 5 minutes, the server is seeing 50+ IMAP connections.
I have configured the same email account in Thunderbird, and even set the update interval to 1 minute, and I do not hit the max connections.
Anyone have any idea why Mail.app would be trying to make 50+ connections? Or simply not closing the connections it opened previously?

Same issue here,

Similar Messages

Mail.app 3.6 won't connect to my POP3 server over a proxy

I updated to 10.5.7 the other day, and now Mail.app will not connect to my POP3/SMTP server via my proxy. This is a big problem for me as I work remotely a lot.
My setup - I use Proxifier (www.proxifier.com) and an SSH proxy so I point my Mail.app at the 192.168.* local address of my POP3 server on my home network. Whether I'm physically on the 192.168.* network, or remote but running Proxifier, Mail.app 3.5/10.5.6 would work flawlessly, as would any other application that addressed my local network (e.g., RDC).
Since upgrading to Mail.app 3.6/10.5.7, however, Mail.app will not connect when I'm using the proxy, but works fine when I'm physically connected to that network; it thinks that the servers is offline (even when using the Connection Doctor). All other TCP/IP applications including RDC continue to work fine via proxy. In particular, I can still use "telnet 192.168.x.y 110" and connect correctly to my POP3 server (and interact with it using the POP3 command set), so the issue would appear to be in Mail.app rather than in the connection itselof.
Since Proxifier only proxifies TCP and not UDP connections, is it possible that Mail.app 3.6 now attempts a UDP connection to a mail server to check if it's alive before trying TCP? If that's the case, can it be disabled? I don't know of any requirement that POP3 servers must be able to respond to UDP. Or is there a way I can drop back to 3.5 which DID work?
Thanks. Jim.

OK, I understand this now (thanks to DHJ for help with experimentation).
1) Mail.app 3.6 appears to ignore /etc/hosts completely. Mail.app 3.5 honored definitions in /etc/hosts.
I tested this by putting the known IP address of pop.gmail.com into /etc/hosts and calling it foo - I could not receive mail by pointing Mail.app at the server foo.
If this is so, it needs to be documented. This is extremely unusual behavior for a network application. I can see why Apple may be trying to protect us from hosts-hijacking, but this non-standard behavior has eaten up a lot of our time trying to figure it out.
2) Mail.app 3.6 appears to use a system proxy if one is defined. Mail.app 3.5 did not.
I tested this by verifying that Mail.app 3.6 could receive my mail (modulo the problem in 1) above) when any system proxy was defined, regardless of whether Profixier was running.
Every other application I know that uses the system proxy gives you the option of doing this (e.g., Firefox, Adium, and so on). This is why my Proxifier application was seeing nothing - Mail.app was going right to the system proxy. (FYI, Proxifier is designed to support proxies for applications that have not already been written to support proxies explicitly.)
The combination of 1) and 2) presented as a totally wacky complex problem. Viewed separately they don't seem so difficult to diagnose. Either way, they are both surprising, unusual and, to my knowledge, undocumented.

IPad 2, mail app frozen after g3 cellular connected. Receiving mail, but all screen function frozen. ???

Ipad 2, mail app frozen after connecting via g3 cellular. Incoming messages are received, but all app functions are frozen. Any ideas anyone?
rural location, have only Internet connection for answers, since email frozen. Thanks any help.

Thanks Diavonex, but that's what I tried to discribe that I'd already done. I didn't realise it was called the "task bar".
I've done both the things you suggested again, but Mail is still locked into this "white" screen when it is relaunched, and after 10 seconds it crashes back to the app menu page. I seems to be running in the background as it knows new emails are waiting to be read, but you can't get into Mail any more to view anything.
Not sure whether to delete all Mail accounts in Settings and start again, but that seems extreme.
Any other suggestions ?

IPhone mail app not showing number of unread messages on home screen

My wife's iPhone has the mail app synced to her Gmail account and everything appears set to "push", but no notification appears onscreen when she gets a email. She has to open the app and then mail downloads.i

Hello queenbea4,
You may need to place a tick mark for "Include when automatically checking for new messages" under the Advanced pane of your iCloud account's settings in Mail's Preferences. This can be found by going to the Mail menu, then to Preferences. Under the Accounts tab, choose your iCloud account, then the Advanced tab to the right.
Lion Mail: Advanced accounts preferences
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4782
Cheers,
Allen

IPhone Mail App showing "negative" number

Hey guys, for some reason my mail app on my iphone is showing a "negative 1" even though there is no mail. I deleted the account, re-entered all the information and it is still there. Also, when a new mail arrives it goes back to 0 (or no notification), once I delete that it goes back to -1. What's wrong? I have no clue what to do! Any help would be appreciated! Thanks

Same problem here.
I have three accounts on my iPhone. 1 GMail, 1 IMAP and 1 MS Exchange. After I disabled the GMail account the IMAP account showed a negative new-emails badge. ( image: http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3136/img0001boy.png )
I tried deleting the account and recreating it on the iPhone, but it didn't help. Also tried to re-enable the GMail account, also didn't help.
After I disabled the GMail account I watched some TED seminars using the TED application, which during one of these video's completely locked up the iPhone. I force-shut down the iPhone, started it back up again (took longer than normal). After the reboot the iPhone was showing erratic behavior (contacts would quit when pushing certain buttons, etc).
A few reboots later the erratic behaviour was gone, but I instead was left with the -2 email badge.
Hopefully this elaborate description of the events that took place will help someone locate the problem.
- Robert

Mail.app keeping IMAP connections alive and active

Hi all,
I was having some issues with the MySQL databases on my website, so I gave my hosting provider a call.
It seems that Mail.app is opening up an IMAP process for each of my 24 e-mail accounds, and keeping it alive for as long as Mail is running. According to the representative I spoke with, e-mail clients, even with IMAP should start a process, synchronize the mail, and close the process, and all of this should happen in around 0.2 seconds.
The problem is that there is a cap of 20 processes on my hosting server, so Mail's behavior is basically causing lots of problems - as long as mail is open and all of my accounts are enabled, my website can't access my MySQL databases.
Does anyone know of a solution to this problem? I used to have "Automatically synchronize mailboxes checked" and tried unchecking this for troubleshooting purposes, but the same thing still happens.
Any ideas or suggestions will be very appreciated.
Thanks!

From what I've read, imap is designed to create a persistent connection, and keep it open until you quit the program.
But there's another problem which might be getting in your way: mail.app does indeed create persistent connections, but then rather than re-using them, it seems to open another new persistent connection each time it checks the mail. So the processes never close, and they start to pile up as new ones are added.
What's more, mail opens multiple connections per account. Looks like it opens 4 connections to check each separate account, and those all get left open until you quit the program.
The reason they do this is, so they say, "performance". More connections = faster mail. But it's a real headache when it doesn't close old processes before opening new ones.
Also an option to limit the number of connections made per account would be welcome.
Thunderbird does exactly the same thing, by the way.

Unable to Connect to my organization's EAS using MS Mail app since upgrade to Windows 8.1 -- certificate error

Last November, my ASUS laptop forced me to update to Windows 8.1. Since then, I cannot connect to my organization's mobile EAS using the Mail/Calendar/People app. The Mail app says "We could not connect to .... because of problems with its
digital certificates. Contact your system administrator for info." I also tried to delete the account and recreate it. At the account info screen, it gave a related error message, stating "To connect to this account, you need a
valid certificate on the PC. Contact your system administrator for more info."
In trying to recreate the account, I note that the 8.1 Mail app appears to have combined all EAS connections -- I seem to recall different options for connecting previously, including one that was more specific to mobile EAS connections. My organization
only supports connection to mobile devices, and I continue to be able to connect via Windows phone, Android (iOS devices also supported).
I have done some digging and see that in my Windows Certificate Manager, there is a Personal Certificate with an error message. It's a "Token Signing Public Key" for "Client Authentication" using an RSA Public Key, but under the Certification
Path tab, the status states "The issuer of the certificate could not be found." I suspect this is the certificate that my organization's server is sending but is no longer being recognized by Windows 8.1.
My organization has been unwilling to support me on this. They point to the fact that all other devices work, my connection worked with Windows 8.0, and they don't have enough users that connect via Windows 8.1 laptops/tablets to troubleshoot on their
end. They also don't want to change setting that then cause other users to lose connectivity on the more commonly used mobile devices.
So, to trouble shoot myself, I have looked up posts on related issues and I have done all of the following to no avail:
- Make sure my Windows is up to date, including that latest Certificate/Credential update;
- Uninstalled the Mail/Calender/People App, restarted, and reinstalled it;
- Had MS Online support try to trouble shoot. They created a test account and tried to connect using that to no avail.
Notably, I have two Windows 8.1 machines -- my wife and I got matching ASUS laptops that both upgraded to 8.1 from 8.0 -- and I am unable to connect to my organization's mobile EAS using either machine.
To me, this is clearly a Windows 8.1 issue. The Mail/Calendar/People app should interface with mobile EAS exactly the same way that other mobile OSes do. Apparently this was the case with Windows 8.0, but no longer.
The last thing I'll add is that my organization requires password and remote wiping when connecting to the mobile EAS. But, this wasn't an issue when I had Windows 8.0 -- it connected fine and mandated password and remote wipe features.
NOTE: I originally posted this question on the Windows 8.1 Tehchnet forum and was told by an MS Engineer Soumya Sunda Debroy to repost in this forum.
PLEASE ADVISE. YOUR HELP IS APPRECIATED.
- Dan

Per the post above, I was pointed to Microsoft's remote connectivity analyzer and it appears to me that the GoDaddy Certificate -- which was compatible with Windows 8, is not compatible with Windows 8.1. (See results below.
I've also seen posts in other threads to "Ignore SSL errors" -- my Mail app doesn't present me that option, even though I uninstalled and reinstalled it. So, can anyone help?
Testing the SSL certificate to make sure it's valid.
The certificate passed all validation requirements.
Additional Details
Elapsed Time: 171 ms.
Test Steps
The Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer is attempting to obtain the SSL certificate from remote server damobile.sccgov.org on port 443.
The Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer successfully obtained the remote SSL certificate.
Additional Details
Remote Certificate Subject: CN=*.sccgov.org, OU=Domain Control Validated, Issuer: SERIALNUMBER=07969287, CN=Go Daddy Secure Certification Authority, OU=http://certificates.godaddy.com/repository, O="GoDaddy.com, Inc.", L=Scottsdale, S=Arizona,
C=US.
Elapsed Time: 84 ms.
Validating the certificate name.
The certificate name was validated successfully.
Additional Details
The host name that was found, damobile.sccgov.org, is a wildcard certificate match for common name *.sccgov.org.
Elapsed Time: 0 ms.
Validating certificate trust for Windows Mobile devices.
The certificate is trusted and all certificates are present in the chain.
Test Steps
The Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer is attempting to build certificate chains for certificate CN=*.sccgov.org, OU=Domain Control Validated.
One or more certificate chains were constructed successfully.
Additional Details
A total of 1 chains were built. The highest quality chain ends in root certificate OU=Go Daddy Class 2 Certification Authority, O="The Go Daddy Group, Inc.", C=US.
Elapsed Time: 30 ms.
Analyzing the certificate chains for compatibility problems with Windows Phone devices.
Potential compatibility problems were identified with some versions of Windows Phone.
<label for="testSelectWizard_ctl12_ctl06_ctl02_ctl02_ctl01_tmmArrow">Tell
me more about this issue and how to resolve it</label>
Additional Details
The certificate is only trusted on Windows Mobile 6.0 and later versions. Devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 and 5.0 with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack won't be able to sync. Root = OU=Go Daddy Class 2 Certification Authority, O="The Go
Daddy Group, Inc.", C=US.
Elapsed Time: 5 ms.
The Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer is analyzing intermediate certificates sent by the remote server.
All intermediate certificates are present and valid.
Additional Details
All intermediate certificates were present and valid.
Elapsed Time: 1 ms.
Testing the certificate date to confirm the certificate is valid.
Date validation passed. The certificate hasn't expired.
Additional Details
The certificate is valid. NotBefore = 8/7/2013 12:51:02 AM, NotAfter = 8/17/2016 4:07:52 PM
Elapsed Time: 0 ms.
Checking the IIS configuration for client certificate authentication.
Client certificate authentication wasn't detected.
Additional Details
Accept/Require Client Certificates isn't configured.
Elapsed Time: 149 ms.

Mail.app : locally store mails for a given period, leave the rest in gmail

Hi all,
My hard drive is filling up at the speed of light.
In order to free some space, I have moved all music and videos on a NAS.
I wish I could save some more space by leaving my older mails in the cloud, and just store locally in the mail app a given number of mails, or a given period, or a given space allocation.
Is there a way to implement any of those solutions?
Regards,
Yann

You are presumably using IMAP for gmail. Have you seen the Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Gmail > Advanced setting choices for Keep copies of messages for offline viewing?
All messages and their attachments
All messages, but omit attachments
Only messages I've read
Don't keep copies of any messages
The first choice is the default. As long as you always have a good network connection, you could select the last choice. This wouldn't not be as nice as a time-based setting.
Keep in mind how cheap hard disks are. I spent $60 for a 500GB 7200rpm drive for my old MacBook.

Mail.app Slow to Send Messages

Sending mail takes forever. After I click send, it can take up to a minute for the send sound to be triggered and the message be sent to the mail server.
I run my own mail server, so I can see that exactly as the sound is played the message is received by the SMTP server.
What on earth is Mail.app doing for that 30-60 seconds after I click send? In Thunderbird there is at most a 4 second delay.

The open-apple-0 Activity Viewer in Mail.app just says:
Delivering Message
Connecting to server "SMTP.server.name"
This SMTP server is on a private 1000Mbps LAN. The mail client I use in Linux (also on a separate machine from the server) is able to establish an SMTP connection and send the message almost instantaneously. The fastest OS X can do it is 10-60 seconds.
The same sort of slow connection affect is visible using the "Connect to Server..." feature of the Finder. Perhaps the underlying problem is not with Mail.app but the socket creator in OS X?
Chris

Exporting Entourage Account to Mail.app

I'd like to export my Entourage settings for an Exchange email account into Mail.app. When I open Mail.app and try the "import" option, it doesn't do anything. I have tried copying the information under the settings for this particular Entourage email account into Mail.app, but am unable to connect to the Exchange server.

I'd like to see this too. I got a new job and CAN NOT get MAIL to work, but the account settings work in ENTOURAGE. I ONLY NEED TO IMPORT THE EMAIL ACCOUNT - NOT the contacts, calendar, etc.
CAN I IMPORT AN EMAIL ACCOUNT - (NOT a "Mailbox")
HELP & THANKS!

Mail.app can't send emails

Mail.app (either 3.6 under 10.5.8 or 4.5 under 10.6.7) has lost the ability to send emails. Both can receive/download emails from Yahoo Mail but neither can send messages.
Sticking to 10.6: I've installed Thunderbird which does work "both ways" but I really want my Mail.app back.
This has been a perennial problem going back some versions of OS X and Mail.app. Mail.app works fine for months but then there will be times when the sent emails seem to stall but can be made to send if I first quit the sending process with Activity Monitor, quit Mail.app and relaunch. This will go on for a few days, then NO emails can be sent.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks for your response, William.
First I'll answer your question and then update what's happened over the past 10 hours or so.
Connection Doctor (this is typical) will show two activities - as represented by the "spinning gear" wheels.
Both say: "Connecting to server."
Often: one of the two activities eventually shows a green button and shows a message: "Mail has connected to the internet."
But Mail.app is then unable to connect with the smpt server.
Nothing more happens for many minutes - usually this ends with a message telling me to check my email and network connections.   (I've done those checks dozens of times - nothing is ever changed or incorrect.)
Tonight (after getting notice of your post to my question), I again tried sending a test message (to myself and to myself again - in my hotmail account)
I was preparing to respond to your question about Connection Doctor so I hit "Send" for the test massage and launched Connection Doctor. Again - nothing happened for about 10-15 minutes but Connection Doctor then flashed a message for me to enter my account login password. I entered my password - but "nothing continued to happen."
Finally - without warning - the test message was sent (and the much loved "swoosh" sound was heard)!
49 days: that's how long it's been since I could use Mail.app to send messages. For no reason I can see - the smpt.ameritech.yahoo server RESPONDED!
Yes - I immediately composed another test message and this one went "swoosh" as soon as I hit the Send button.
Next: Tuesday (first business day after Memorial Day) I'll call my ISP and try to sort this out with them. This is NOT a Mac problem. I have proven this: tried to send from both 10.5.8 (Mail.app 3.6), from 10.6.7 (Mail.app 4.5) on my Mac Pro and from my MacBook (also running 10.6.7 and Mail.app 4.5). NONE of these platforms can connect with smtp.ameritech.yahoo server.
You: get a "helpful" rating because, if not for your question about Connection Doctor, I would never have tried (yet again) sending another test message.   I was simply convinced that doing that was useless after many tries.

Assertion Failures using Mail.app with Exchange 2007...

We have been implementing and migrating our end-users to Exchange 2007. In doing so we found that Mail.app end-users were experiencing Assertion failures in Console.app. They used to cause Mail.app to crash and lose connectivity frequently to the Exchange 2007 server. We made a change to the firewall to allow communication to happen between domain controllers, but haven't been able to determine if this in fact resolved or helped hide the root cause. We seem to be no longer crashing Mail.app or losing connectivity, but the same logs when we would crash/lose connectivity are still happening when you look in Console.app.
*Here is an example of an Assertion failure where "The Operation couldn't be completed":*
+11/12/10 1:19:36 PM Mail[3201] * Assertion failure in -[EWSConnection sendMessage:forRequest:], /SourceCache/Message/Message-1082/MessageStores.subproj/EWSConnection.m:374+
+Received an unexpected error: Error Domain=NSXMLParserErrorDomain Code=5 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 5.)", response: (null)+
+ 0 Message 0x00007fff804216e4 -[MFAssertionHandler _handleFailureWithPreamble:description:arguments:] + 137+
+ 1 Message 0x00007fff80421649 -[MFAssertionHandler handleFailureInMethod:object:file:lineNumber:description:] + 220+
+ 2 Message 0x00007fff8036301b -[EWSConnection sendMessage:forRequest:] + 1117+
+ 3 Message 0x00007fff8036e5b9 -[EWSGateway sendMessage:forRequest:] + 79+
+ 4 Message 0x00007fff80381a63 -[EWSRequestOperation executeOperation] + 104+
+ 5 Message 0x00007fff8042fab9 -[MonitoredOperation main] + 229+
+ 6 Foundation 0x00007fff8654bde4 -[__NSOperationInternal start] + 681+
+ 7 Foundation 0x00007fff8662abeb __doStart2 + 97+
+ 8 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff863522c4 dispatch_call_block_andrelease + 15+
+ 9 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff86330831 dispatch_workerthread2 + 239+
+ 10 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff86330168 pthreadwqthread + 353+
+ 11 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff86330005 start_wqthread + 13+
*I also get this Assertion failure every time I re-open Mail.app that shows up in Console.app that says "Mail did something wrong: The specified folder could not be found in the store.":*
+11/12/10 12:44:22 PM Mail[3201] * Assertion failure in -[EWSGetFolderResponseOperation handleResponseMessage:withObject:], /SourceCache/Message/Message-1082/MessageStores.subproj/EWSResponseOperation.m: 420+
+Mail did something wrong: The specified folder could not be found in the store. on EWS response <EWSGetFolderResponseOperation: 0x1012f1830> (EXECUTING)+
+ 0 Message 0x00007fff804216e4 -[MFAssertionHandler _handleFailureWithPreamble:description:arguments:] + 137+
+ 1 Message 0x00007fff80421649 -[MFAssertionHandler handleFailureInMethod:object:file:lineNumber:description:] + 220+
+ 2 Message 0x00007fff80382956 -[EWSResponseOperation handleResponseMessage:withObject:] + 2295+
+ 3 Message 0x00007fff80377aae __-[EWSGetFolderResponseOperation executeOperation]block_invoke1 + 88+
+ 4 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff879c26d7 __NSArrayEnumerate + 1399+
+ 5 Message 0x00007fff80377d86 -[EWSGetFolderResponseOperation executeOperation] + 445+
+ 6 Message 0x00007fff8042fab9 -[MonitoredOperation main] + 229+
+ 7 Foundation 0x00007fff8654bde4 -[__NSOperationInternal start] + 681+
+ 8 Foundation 0x00007fff8662abeb __doStart2 + 97+
+ 9 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff863522c4 dispatch_call_block_andrelease + 15+
+ 10 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff86330831 dispatch_workerthread2 + 239+
+ 11 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff86330168 pthreadwqthread + 353+
+ 12 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff86330005 start_wqthread + 13+
+11/12/10 12:44:22 PM Mail[3201] Recieved EWS error: Error Domain=MFEWSErrorDomain Code=79 UserInfo=0x1148c1d10 "The specified folder could not be found in the store."+
We are getting these Assertion Failures for other end-users as well that are using Mail.app and connecting to Exchange 2007 Server. I have wiped my mail.app account and started from fresh and that didn't help. I did it manually as well ensuring that preference files, caches, and passwords related to mail.app, ical.app, and Address Book.app were removed. That did not work. I just went from 10.6.4 to 10.6.5 hoping that would correct the issue, it did not. I even set up on another Mac a baseline Snow Leopard and patched it and then configured my mail account and still got the same errors.
What I am hoping for is not a miracle (Fixing the problem), but being told what these errors mean and if there is any risks to be concerned with. In other words, can I ignore these error messages or should I be concerned? Like I said it was causing us to get the sideways thunderbolt or triangle with an exclamation point and even crashing Mail.app at times. That hasn't happened since we let the all of the domain controllers talk to each other, even though they shouldn't have to.

I echo your hope for someone shedding a light on this. I too am geting Assertion failures, every few days, though without much in the way of crashes.
Here is an example of a log entry describing one recent such failure:
+5.12.2010 11:04:40 Mail[17075] * Assertion failure in -[EWSGetFolderResponseOperation handleResponseMessage:withObject:], /SourceCache/Message/Message-1082/MessageStores.subproj/EWSResponseOperation.m: 420+
+Mail did something wrong: The specified folder could not be found in the store. on EWS response <EWSGetFolderResponseOperation: 0x11d80ec70> (EXECUTING)+
0 Message 0x00007fff81f7d6e4 -[MFAssertionHandler _handleFailureWithPreamble:description:arguments:] + 137
1 Message 0x00007fff81f7d649 -[MFAssertionHandler handleFailureInMethod:object:file:lineNumber:description:] + 220
2 Message 0x00007fff81ede956 -[EWSResponseOperation handleResponseMessage:withObject:] + 2295
3 Message 0x00007fff81ed3aae __-[EWSGetFolderResponseOperation executeOperation]block_invoke1 + 88
4 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8448c6d7 __NSArrayEnumerate + 1399
5 Message 0x00007fff81ed3d86 -[EWSGetFolderResponseOperation executeOperation] + 445
6 Message 0x00007fff81f8bab9 -[MonitoredOperation main] + 229
7 Foundation 0x00007fff847b4de4 -[__NSOperationInternal start] + 681
8 Foundation 0x00007fff84893beb __doStart2 + 97
9 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff85f6b2c4 dispatch_call_block_andrelease + 15
10 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff85f49831 dispatch_workerthread2 + 239
11 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff85f49168 pthreadwqthread + 353
12 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff85f49005 start_wqthread + 13
Perhaps coincidentally, I am having trouble with syncing iCal with my Exchange account. Ii have only found this thread on the subject, and am in the process of trying to find there the solution to that problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2138051
Any and all insight would be greatly appreciated.

Mail app cant connect to hotmail smtp

hi everyone
I just started using mac in dec
Today, when i try to send an email using the mail app, an error message comes up saying it cannot connect to mail server
But I can receive mail from my hotmail account
I tried looking through some post, most of them only says change the port number which I did, but no luck
So I want to see is there anybody here got the same problem or has a solution to it
Many thx!!!

it might not work with hotmail, but sometimes try unchecking SSL. and also try unchecking the "password" option and put "none"...or some combination of that.
if that doesn't work, you can always configure an smtp server option from your home or university ISP and send emails out through that.
it really doesn't matter, you can send from different smtp and it will still arrive from your hotmail address, although i'm not sure if spam filters will know the difference or not.
perhaps your ISP's are blocking something. i find this to be the case many times believe it or not. you should call the ISP or your tech department to trouble shoot that configuration.
i'm not an expert on this by any means, but i travel a lot in weird countries with slow connections, and i have had all kinds of problems. once, we were in a tiny town with satellite/cable internet access for the whole town. i could send out, but my friend with another mac couldn't.
also, sometimes it has to do with your email provider. but in this case, it's hotmail, so that's doubtful.

The ol' "mail.app holds 3 persistent connection per account" problem.

I've seen posts from a few years ago regarding this problem. My mail host only allows a certain number of persistent connection... ok, that's my bad for cheaping out on a host, I can dig that.
But there has to be an automated way to check, and disconnect for these types of situations. It doesn't seem right to have to change isp's when mail.app could have a little checkbox that says:
"don't persist IMAP connection because of ghetto ISP".
The fraction of a second it would take to reconnect, check and retrieve headers, then disconnect is something I can live with.
Does anyone have a workaround or know of a client that allows non-persistant imap connections?
Maybe an IMAP proxy daemon?
Any help will be rewarded by receiving the praise of all the other poor sods in the same boat. Your name will be rejoiced the world over, you will be a GOD!
Thanks

If Mail complains that it timed out on port 0, that means there is something wrong with your network and/or account settings.
Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Network, choose Network Port Configurations from the Show popup menu, and make sure that the configuration used to connect to Internet appears at the top of the list.
Also, try using a different method to connect to Internet, if possible, or connecting the computer to Internet as directly as possible, i.e. bypassing any routers that might be present, using an ethernet cable instead of wireless, etc., and see whether that makes a difference.
As to the logs, Mail doesn’t make it easy to get them. Open /Applications/Utilities/Console and do either File > Open Console Log, or File > Open System Log, or both, so that Console displays the contents of both system.log and console.log.
Apparently, you can tell Mail to provide detailed log information as described in the following article (I haven’t tried it myself):
Enable detailed Mail.app logging options
Also, Mail comes with a Turn On Logging AppleScript that I haven’t tried either, but that was discussed in the following thread:
MAIL LOG???

Cannot send email with Mail app-..can't connect to AOL server anymore??

Up until today my MAIL app in my iMac let me use an email address that is from the AOL.com group (netscape.net)…I cannot send emails now because I can't get the computer to connect to the server. My iPad will….but not the desktop. I tried using a different server name; smtp.nestcape.net, which is the one I used in the iPad…but the iMac won't let me change it to that one..so back to the old smtp.aol.com……Still my MAIL app is not recognizing this or letting me connect!?!. I tried creating a new password at the wedpage of that email account.. successfully..but it has made no difference. I am stumped and have wasted half the day trying to deal with this. Anyone else have such an experience? HELP…PLEASE!

Thank you Eric for sending the links. Fortunately after I wrote this post…I don't know what happened but I filled in my mail preference settings for the umteenth time with my new email password and voila! It worked. For some reason however…now when I open the Mail App I do still get a prompt asking me if I want to use this server….and it is, of course, the one and only I have listed.!?!?! The thing that irritates me…is…that I had done NOTHING to cause a problem to begin with. I think my email account at aol (nestcape) may have been hacked and my password stolen or compromised in some way??...and perhaps that caused a glitch in my mail app??? I am no techy, but I should have started out with my intuition and changed the password first before going mental….When something like this happens it makes one feel so vulnerable.…I usually feel well secured with my lone iMac and now my new iPad…ANYWAY…thank tyou for addressing my issue and I have bookmarked those links…for future reference which I hope I never need. Hey..is that your kitty??? She is beeeooootiful!
Take care and again, thanx~ D

Mail.app making excessive number of connections

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