Mail won't quit, also won't force quit

Following problem:
Mail does not hang, but also won't quit. The quit menu item is even greyed out. The Mail program prevents a restart (dialog after timout saying Mail canceled the restart) and also will not force quit. I've tried force quiting from the context menu on the dock, and also from the force quit dialog in the apple menu.
The only way to get shut down is to quit the WindowServer process from within the Activity Monitor, which causes a sort of "log out" to occur, meaning that I end up in the login screen. From here I can shut down or restart normally.
My OS is up to date with all patches. The problem persists (in fact I would say its only about 3 weeks old) and happens quite regularly (ca. 5 times/week.)
dual 1.8 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I did this yesterday...with same problems. Create a new user in system pref-accounts. Make sure you enable fast user switching and give it admin access. Then, switch over to new account (top right corner of menu bar)
In the new account, set up a new mail account with your info. Your mail should come back automatically. Then, you'll need to put the mail plist file that's in your user folder on a thumb drive. Go back to your main user account and replace that file in the same area. THEN, open mail and see if it fixes it. It did for me after pulling my hair out for 24 hours...

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<hr>
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Thanks Kiraly...Here is a list of everything activity says is running...I don't know what this stuff means but I quit everything and do not have anything else that I opened up.
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Mail doesn't shut down; need to Force Quit

Hi
Recently the Mail on my iMac has stopped shutting down (Alt-Q, or Mail/Quit, etc). To stop it, I need to Force Quit. Mail seems to go out to places I send to, and mail comes back in, but it won't shut down.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
thanks
dc

I've been having this problem for several months. In fact, I was experiencing it on my G5 tower, under 10.5.6, and I had hoped that replacing the entire computer with a new iMac, and a brand new operating system, would make it go away. No Joy. Apparently the MIgration Assistant helped the problem migrate to my new machine.
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I don't really use the Mac Mail very often because have always had problems with it so I will tend to use Gmail, Yahoo or whatever service it is. I cannot even get mail to open at this point. It just says Application Not Responding and then I force quit. and it still wont open. The only annoying part is often on websites theres an email link to click and that opens the MAIL application to get that website.
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Do a backup.
Quit Mail.
Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Go to Library/Containers/com.apple.mail. Move the folder com.apple.mail to your desktop. You must move the entire folder, not just the contents.
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Information learned from Linc Davis. Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.
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Mail won't quit, also won't force quit

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