Mail suddenly closes immediately upon opening

Question

All of a sudden when I open Mail, it opens the app for about 2 seconds then it closes and throws up an error message. I have tried deleting com.apple.mail.plist and com.apple.addressbook.plist from the Preferences folder with no success. Here is the crash report:
Exception: EXCBADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE (0x0002) at 0x92b267f0
Thread 0 Crashed:
0 com.apple.WebCore 0x954f12bc DOM::DOMString::DOMString[unified](DOM::DOMString const&) + 24
1 com.apple.WebCore 0x954ffba4 KWQFontFamily::KWQFontFamily[unified](KWQFontFamily const&) + 28
2 com.apple.WebCore 0x954ffa0c khtml::StyleInheritedData::StyleInheritedData[unified](khtml::StyleInheritedDat a const&) + 84
3 com.apple.WebCore 0x9551691c khtml::CSSStyleSelector::applyProperty(int, DOM::CSSValueImpl*) + 19360
4 com.apple.WebCore 0x95511d44 khtml::CSSStyleSelector::applyDeclarations(bool, bool, int, int) + 252
5 com.apple.WebCore 0x9550f96c khtml::CSSStyleSelector::styleForElement(DOM::ElementImpl*, khtml::RenderStyle*, bool) + 992
6 com.apple.WebCore 0x9550f478 DOM::NodeImpl::createRendererIfNeeded() + 108
7 com.apple.WebCore 0x9550f3f4 DOM::ElementImpl::attach() + 24
8 com.apple.WebCore 0x95547ba8 DOM::HTMLTableElementImpl::attach() + 24
9 com.apple.WebCore 0x9550e484 KHTMLParser::insertNode(DOM::NodeImpl*, bool) + 2444
10 com.apple.WebCore 0x9550c5f8 KHTMLParser::parseToken(khtml::Token*) + 620
11 com.apple.WebCore 0x955096a0 khtml::HTMLTokenizer::processToken() + 460
12 com.apple.WebCore 0x9550b004 khtml::HTMLTokenizer::parseTag(khtml::TokenizerString&) + 6296
13 com.apple.WebCore 0x95508f20 khtml::HTMLTokenizer::write(khtml::TokenizerString const&, bool) + 928
14 com.apple.WebCore 0x95504588 KHTMLPart::write(char const*, int) + 852
15 com.apple.WebKit 0x9530d1cc -[WebDataSource(WebPrivate) _commitLoadWithData:] + 92
16 com.apple.WebKit 0x952d925c -[WebMainResourceClient addData:] + 84
17 com.apple.WebKit 0x952d9188 -[WebBaseResourceHandleDelegate didReceiveData:lengthReceived:] + 68
18 com.apple.WebKit 0x95333a9c -[WebMainResourceClient didReceiveData:lengthReceived:] + 136
19 com.apple.WebKit 0x952d9124 -[WebBaseResourceHandleDelegate connection:didReceiveData:lengthReceived:] + 60
20 com.apple.Foundation 0x929a85d4 -[NSURLConnection(NSURLConnectionInternal) _sendDidReceiveDataCallback] + 564
21 com.apple.Foundation 0x929a6a74 -[NSURLConnection(NSURLConnectionInternal) _sendCallbacks] + 488
22 com.apple.Foundation 0x929a6810 _sendCallbacks + 156
23 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x907e4b20 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 568
24 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x907e3f98 __CFRunLoopRun + 452
25 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x907e3a18 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 268
26 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9321d980 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 264
27 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9321d014 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 380
28 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9321ce80 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 96
29 com.apple.AppKit 0x936ff104 _DPSNextEvent + 384
30 com.apple.AppKit 0x936fedc8 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 116
31 com.apple.AppKit 0x936fb30c -[NSApplication run] + 472
32 com.apple.AppKit 0x937ebe68 NSApplicationMain + 452
33 com.apple.mail 0x00002424 0x1000 + 5156
34 com.apple.mail 0x000a4940 0x1000 + 670016
Any assistance is greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Todd Walker

Answer 1

Hi:
I've run into the same problem recently: open Mail, the gear starts turning, the program quits. Today, I ran across this link in a ebook published by one of the Helpers here at the forums: "http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301584". It appears as though 3rd-party programs will sometimes install plug-ins for Mail. If I read the article correctly, no 3rd party plug-ins are supported for Mail. Anyway, I found one for a program I thought I'd thrown away a week ago. I tossed it, and things have been working OK since. May not be the cure for everyone's problem, but - another thing to try. Go to Library>Mail>Bundles and check. You may have to check both of them. My troublemaker was in the System Library, and not in the Home Library.
John
Intel iMac   Mac OS X (10.4.4)