Message 'randomly' disappears and is gone

Hello,
This happened once last fall and has happened twice in the past week or so. I think it is rare, but it could also happen to messages I'm just archiving and I would not notice.
The problem: In Mail, I click on a folder to go to that pile of email, and a message header is visible for a moment and then is gone. Please let me elaborate. In the Mail window, I see the Sender, the Subject line, date and time. This morning I went to look at a copy of an email I sent last night, and I opened my Sent Folder. I saw the email at the top of the list (sorted so most recent is at the top) and then it disappeared. I hadn't pressed any keys. It wasn't there as a deleted message. There was nothing to undo. After a few minutes I logged on to the web interface to the IMAP server and the message was gone. I have the reply already, so I can get the text another way. But the idea that a message just disappears is pretty bad. It seems linked to clicking on a folder in the Mail Message Viewer. I should say that I was looking for some other messages last night too, and couldn't find them, so it may have happened frequently recently.
I am connecting to a UW IMAP server (at UW, coincidentally) with SSL. Right now I'm using a MacBook Pro with an updated installation of Tiger, but this also happened last year on my PowerBook G4, so I don't think it is an Intel based problem. I had contacted UW computer support to see if they had any ideas, and they told me to use Thunderbird. I tried it, but I like Mac Mail much better when this doesn't happen.
I don't have the slightest idea how to diagnose this. I looked for settings to toggle in Preferences, but did not see anything. Is there a way I can collect information flowing between Mail and the server to see where the delete command is coming from? Any suggestions or thoughts you might have will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Brian

Hello Brian.
It looks like the messages are being removed from the server for some reason, and this is what causes them to disappear from Mail when it synchronizes with the server as a result of you trying to view the contents of the mailbox.
Mail is probably initially showing the cached contents and this could be what causes the visual glitch. It doesn't necessarily mean that the message is being deleted at that time. It could be that the message has already been removed from the server for some reason, but Mail doesn't realize it until you tell it to show the mailbox contents.
I don't know what might be causing those messages to be removed from the server, though, unless you've accessed this account from another computer...

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Message 'randomly' disappears and is gone

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