Pop account offline (again)

My POP account is offline again. This happens intermittently and interferes with sending mail, especially from the iTouch where the notification does not appear. Does anyone have any idea what is happening. The ports change without input on my POP account. I have no problems with my .me acct. I cannot take the POP account online without setting it up again. The "take all accounts online" does not work for this problem either.

Thank you for your reply.
I have two accounts in Mail. One is the Apple .mac or .me and the other is a POP account with my ISP. I do not have trouble receiving mail from either account. However intermittently the POP account goes offline and I cannot send from that username and address. I have worked around this problem by removing the account and reentering all the information again and changing the port number under "Advanced." This works for a time, then it is offline again and I discover that the port number has changed. This was an annoyance, but I was able to deal with it as long as knew when there was a problem. However now that I have an iTouch, I have discovered that there is no notification of a problem if I am using the iTouch "reply" to messages sent to my ISP address. Replies appear to be sent, are in the ISP "Sent" box on the iTouch, but in reality have gone nowhere including Mobile Me and the ISP "Sent" on the Web, and certainly not to the intended recipient. I would like to keep the ISP address.
I have the latest update for my Leopard operating system (not Snow Leopard), an Airport, and an Iomega harddrive for Time Machine back-up. I have a hub and a router with two computers connected to the hub with Ethernet cables.
I would appreciate any insight into the problem.
Thanks,
k2b

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All mail accounts offline when disconnecting from HMA pro

Im using Airport Extremes WLAN for internet access.
Every time I disconnect from HMA! VPN Pro , secure internet encryption application, all my mac mail accounts go offline. All available SMTP servers including gmail smtp server which according HMA Helpline is whitelisted , are all off-line. No way to bring them back alive again.Cant send or receive any email. Quitting HMA and reloading mail doesn't work. It drives me nuts. Support from HMA is poor. They say to use gmail smtp servers instead any others because they are "whitelisted". but even gmail is steadily offline. Tried to change ports as suggested in their troubleshooting section- without success.
Only thing that does the trick is to switch to my iPhone's personal hotspot. But switching back to WLAN again sets all accounts offline again.
Another workaround is to restart the complete system 10.8.5 and not log on to HMA which is quiet a nuisance. AS soon as I log in I can't send email again through mac mail program (which according HMA's support section "is normal"-). Logging on to HMA must doe some nasty thing to the WLAN settings in the background which I can't figure out. So far I have not received any solution to this nuisance from HMA.
Anybody out there having similar problems and possible solutions?
Help is very much appreciated!!

Here's what i did, I had the same problem. Go to the finder/go/computer/yourname/library/preferences. move the file com.apple.mail.plist to the trash bin. But before you do this copy all the info on your account for your isp. Such as user name,password , incomming server, and outgoing server info. This worked for me. Good luck
John

Massive frustration with Apple Mail and POP accounts going offline

I love Apple mail. Best interface ever.
BUT... because of issues with Apple Mail, I've been forced to use Entourage.
I really want to use Apple Mail and hope someone here can help me with this.
I have two Yahoo business mail POP accounts that I need to have running for an online business I have. I keep Mail running all day and my .Mac IMAP account and a Comcast POP account stay up all the time.
But the two Yahoo accounts keep going offline. I get an Apple Mail message asking me to reenter my password. They won't stay up more than five minutes or so.
Over the course of a day, this is so irritating that, as I said, I've had to switch to Entourage, where the accounts stay connected all the time and work just fine.
I've scoured the forums here. Deleted .plists, added IP addresses, followed any suggestion that seemed plausible/ But no luck.
If Entourage works, Apple Mail, it seems to me, also should.
Can anyone help????

Speaking as one forced to use Entourage at work I can with confidence say in my case that they are different products serving different markets with different needs.
Apple did not drop the ball - the server is asking for re-authentication of a POP client. Any POP client should behave the same way. Yes, the client could just provide the credentials again, but it is safer to reequire the user to respond to the request.
That the request happens frequently is a function of the interrelationship between the DHCP lease life, client, and the mail host's response to new information.
Who is providing your DHCP lease?

I cannot configure pop account in mail, says it is offline. What to do?

I cannot configure pop account in mail, says it is offline. What to do?

Welcome to Apple Communities
Download it here and install. Sometimes the download fails with Software Update

HT1338 I can no longer use Macmail for my btinternet account. I was advised to delete the imap account and begin again with a pop account for incoming mail. My Macbook will not let me do that and neither BT nor Yahoo have been able to help.

I can no longer use Macmail for my btinternet account. I was advised to delete the imap account and begin again with a pop account for incoming mail. My Macbook will not let me do that and neither BT nor Yahoo have been able to help.

Btinternet being your internet service provider? If I'm correct, have you followed their directions:
http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7073/c/2048,2053,3883,206 5
Just found a seemingly newer article (and there are several more on the right of those pages):
http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7071/related/1/session/L2 F2LzEvdGltZS8xMzU0NzI1NTMyL3NpZC9qaThFVi1jbA%3D%3D

POP account will not stay online. Goes offline even after I "take account

My POP account will not stay online, even when I "take" the account "online" via the mailbox drop-down in the menu bar. I don't think the ISP or the internet connection is the problem as I have three other mailboxes with the same ISP and they all work fine.
Why might the POP account be failing to hold its online status and what can O do about it.
Thanks for your help with my problem.

Hi, and a warm welcome to the Forums!
First I'd backup your whole Mail folder.
Try dragging this file to the Desktop first, then logout/in...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
Can drag back if it doesn't help.
If that doesn't work try the .plists in...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/
In your home folder, try trashing this folder after quitting Mail...
/Library/Caches/Mail
http://www.hawkwings.net/2006/02/08/rebuild-your-database-and-speed-up-mailapp/
Move Envelope Index to the Desktop in...
/Library/Mail

I up graded to Lion OsX and when I configured my POP account, it says is null and with the same configuration in my Macbook I have no problem at all, what can I do?

I upgraded my operating system to Lion osx 10.7 and after I ibnstalles it I coul not receive or send emails from my POP account, yes from my IMAP accounts,Itried to configure it again with the same configuration I have in my Macbook with Leopard system and it say its null, what can I do?
Carlos38

That issue can be caused by corrupted cookies.
Clear the cache and the cookies from sites that cause problems.
"Clear the Cache":
* Firefox > Preferences > Advanced > Network > Offline Storage (Cache): "Clear Now"
"Remove Cookies" from sites causing problems:
* Firefox > Preferences > Privacy > Cookies: "Show Cookies"
If clearing the cookies doesn't help then it is possible that the file cookies.sqlite that stores the cookies is corrupted.
Rename (or delete) cookies.sqlite (cookies.sqlite.old) and delete cookies.sqlite-journal and cookies.txt, if they exist, in the Firefox Profile Folder in case the file cookies.sqlite got corrupted.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

I have a POP account set up in Mail, has been that way for years. Today it isn't working.

I have a POP email account that's been set up in Mail for years. Today it won't send or retrieve email, continually asks for my password but doesn't keep it. My iCloud email is fine. According to an Apple Support document, "Mail: Troubleshooting sending & receiving email" (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3276), it appears as if it's a problem with my email provider. I've spoken to the email provider and they say it's not a problem on their end. I can log into my email account using the provider's webmail and all is fine there. And, since I'm still receiving my email on my iPad & iPhone, I'm not entirely convinced it is a problem with the email provider.
When I go into Mail Preferences, my password shows blank (even when I re-enter it) and it shows my Outgoing Mail Server as Offline. When I choose Edit SMTP server list and click on the Advanced tab, my password is missing here as well. Re-entering it doesn't help.
I've tried Take All Accounts Offline then Take All Accounts Online and that doesn't work. I would delete the account and set it up again, but I get a warning message that if I delete the account, I lose everything in the account; folders, email, filters, etc. I can't afford to lose the existing emails.
I'm using Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and Mail 6.2; I believe they are both the most recent versions.

I checked the settings with Network Solutions and they are correct. As to archiving, is it possible to turn everything into one big archive or does each folder and subfolder need to be archived individually? I've looked at the documentation and I get the impression that everything is archived separately. Also I couldn't find a mention as to whether it's possible to archive or some how save all of my filters.
I use Time Machine as my general backup. I back up all the Mail files every couple weeks (on a flash drive) but now I've learned, the hard way, that's not often enough.
Thank you.

Mail account offline in non-admin logins

We use multiple logins on the computer and have multiple email accounts.
One email (POP) account is set up for our children and seems to work under the administrator's login. However, the same account is listed as offline when checked from other logins.
Any ideas?

Not sure what you mean. Is it that you haven’t tried to take it online (i.e. Mailbox > Go Online), or that it goes offline again by itself when you do that?

Mail crashes when trying to access pop accounts

Help!
Since I updated to OS 10.4.8, mail has stopped working properly. Whenever I try to get mail from my pop accounts, it crashes immediately. As long as I stay offline, the program seems to work.
I tried deleting my accounts and re-entering them, but that didn't have any effect. Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know how to fix it?
Powerbook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

You're welcome.
There is probably some corruption in one or more of the files used by the junk filter. The following procedure thoroughly gets rid of all those files, so that Mail creates them anew:
1. Quit Mail if it's running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/.
3. Locate LSMMap2 and move it to the Trash. This file stores information about what does and doesn't constitute junk, and is what allows the junk filter to learn. Clicking the Reset button in Preferences > Junk Mail also deletes LSMMap2. The file was called just LSMMap in early versions of Mail, delete that as well if you see it.
4. Locate DefaultCounts and move it to the Trash. This file keeps statistics about the number of messages that have been marked as junk, either automatically by the junk filter or manually by the user.
5. Locate MessageRules.plist and move it to the Desktop. This is where Mail 2.x stores all rules, including those used by the junk filter. If there is a file called MessageRules.plist.backup, move it to the Desktop too. You may also see MessageSorting.plist files there; this is where Mail 1.x stored the rules, and they are no longer used by Mail 2.x, so just move them to the Trash if you see them.
6. Look for the account folders. The name of each account folder starts with the account type (POP, IMAP, Mac), followed by the account username and the incoming mail server. Open each of the account folders, locate the Junk.mbox or Junk.imapmbox folder within it, and move it to the Trash if present.
7. Go to ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/. Locate any Junk.mbox folders there (their name may include the account name in parenthesis), and move them to the Trash.
Note: Messages in Junk folders with an .mbox suffix are stored locally and will be lost forever as a result of doing steps 6 and 7. If there is a chance that you have legit messages there that you want to preserve, either move the messages to another mailbox in Mail first, or move the Junk.mbox folder to the Desktop (to be imported back later) instead of to the Trash. Junk folders with an .imapmbox suffix aren't a concern because they are stored on the server and Mail will rebuild them automatically.
8. Open Mail. As a result of removing the rules file, the junk filter will be disabled now. You may want to either tell Mail to go offline immediately after opening it, or shut down the Internet connection before opening Mail, to prevent it from downloading anything until the junk mail filter has been enabled again.
9. Go to Mail > Preferences > Junk Mail, enable junk filtering, and configure it however you wish.
10. Go online again if you went offline in step 8.
If the above solves the problem and you don't have any rules you'd like to preserve or recreating them is not a daunting task, just delete the MessageRules.plist files that were moved to the Desktop and be done with it.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder. You can easily locate any of the folders referred to in this post by copying the file path here, doing Go > Go to Folder in the Finder, and pasting the file path there.

Mail hang when getting email from multiple POP accounts

I'm posting this issue again.
Mail hangs while getting new mail from multiple POP accounts almost every time. When it does, only Force Quit can quit it.
The following DID NOT fix the hang:
- Reconstructing all mail boxes
- Exporting, deleting and reimporting all mail boxes
- Disabling all rules
- Deleting anti-spam history
- Deleting all emails from all mail boxes
Testing each POP account individually while putty the other two offline works fine.
I also noticed that sometimes the new mail counter in Inbox displays 2-4 new messages while there is no new ones. Switching boxes/folders and back to Inbox fixes it.
The POP accounts are:
One plain text POP
One secure POP
One GMail POP
Can anyone help?

You’re welcome.
I did try to clear the junk mail preferences
The Junk Mail preferences cannot be “cleared”. What do you mean?
it crashes almost every single time.
It doesn’t crash (i.e. quit unexpectedly). It freezes (i.e. becomes unresponsive), right?
I transfered my data to a Mac Mini. I had the same exact problem on it too!
so it seems it has nothing to do with the OS plugins or the setup I have.
Well, that would depend on what exactly does “I transfered my data” mean...
Try first disabling all the rules in Preferences > Rules AND the junk filter in Preferences > Junk Mail. If the problem persists, proceed as follows.
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, and ensuring that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), try this:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. Make a backup copy of this folder, just in case something goes wrong, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down. This is where all your mail is locally stored.
3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see any other “Envelope Index”-named file there, delete it as well.
4. Move any “IMAP-”, “Mac-”, or “Exchange-” account folders to the Trash. Note that you can do this with IMAP-type accounts because they store mail on the server and Mail can easily re-create them. DON’T trash any “POP-” account folders, as that would cause all the mail stored there to be lost.
5. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs to be “imported”. Click Continue and Mail will proceed to re-create Envelope Index — Mail says it’s “importing”, but it just re-creates the index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x format.
6. As a side effect of having removed the IMAP account folders, those accounts may be in an “offline” state now. Do Mailbox > Go Online to bring them back online.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.

How can I keep just one of two accounts offline in Mac Mail?

I recently switched from Comcast to Cox Cable. Cox has a known issue with push notifications and email doesn't show up at regular intervals. You have to go offline and back on or quit Mail and then open it again to see new messages. It's a pain but it works.
I still have my Comcast email account enabled on Mac Mail because I need access to old emails and if I disable it (via Preferences), it disappears. I want to take it offline but clicking on the Comcast account and "take comcast.net offline" always takes my Cox account offline as well. I can't get them to both stay online because the Comcast account hangs when it can't connect to Comcast. This really exacerbates the already annoying issue of having to take Cox offline and back on.
I tried going into the Comcast account via Preferences and unchecking "include when automatically checking for new messages" but when I did so, it kept the Cox account from receiving any messages at all (I confirmed this by checking webmail, and by toggling it on and off to see what happened).
I need some solution that allows me to see the comcast account in mail without having it be active in any way. I have other mailboxes archived but that process doesn't offer the search capability that I need.

Aha! I have been doing just that. However, what has been tripping me up is that I am also used to clicking the Go Online/Go Offline toggle button on the top menu bar when I manually check for messages on Cox. Apparently when you take one inbox offline, that button switches to Off even though the other inbox is still online. If I just ignore that button and go on or off via the cox mailbox listing, it keeps comcast from being reactivated.
Thanks so much for helping me think this through.
Edited to add: I removed that dang button from my menu so I can stop clicking it.

How to Send Email on iPad 3G if you have a 3rd Party POP Account

After a nice chat with the helpful support guys at O2, it may be worth me telling everyone here who has:
1. an iPad with Wifi and 3G
2. a POP email account with another home broadband provider (as I do)
This is a long post, but it's all worthwhile stuff. As they say in the US, 'your mileage may vary' so I'm not guaranteeing this solution will work for you, but it was the only way I can get my iPad Wifi+3G to successfully send emails when at home and out and about. It ain't pretty, so let's hope it gets cleared up in OS 4 grin
Before you begin, ensure that:
1. Wifi is turned off
2. You are in range of your 3G service.
3. You have already set up your iPad to work at home using your Wifi router with your broadband provider's POP and SMTP servers.
What you must do. (Have iPad in landscape format to follow along)
1. Tap the 'Settings' App on the Home screen
2. Tap on 'Email Contacts and Calendars' option (on the left)
3. In the panel on the right, tap on your POP email account, under 'Accounts'
4. When the Account pane pops up, scroll down to 'Outgoing Mail Server'
5. Tap on the server
6. Tap 'Add Server...' under 'Other SMTP Servers' to add your carrier's SMTP server
7. When the input pane appears type the carrier's smtp server, which may look like smtp.o2.co.uk or smtp.three.co.uk or whatever...
8. tap 'Save'
9. You will have to wait while iPad tries to use SSL. Eventually iPad will ask you to connect to the server without SSL.
10. Tap 'yes' to try without SSL
11. When iPad gets back to you, tap on the carrier's server in the 'Other SMTP Servers' list. (iPad goes back to the previous screen when the server is verified)
12. A new panel will appear, showing the server settings. Leave these alone, except for turning the server to 'on'
13. Tap 'Done' (top right corner)
14. Now turn your isp's outgoing server off (tap on your primary server and tap on the 'off' on the switch on the settings panel for the server)
15. Tap 'Done' at the top right and work your way back to the main settings screen
16. Now you can test your email
17. Turn iPad off. Not just 'off' but 'OFF'. Hold sleep/wake for a few seconds and slide the switch when asked to turn iPad OFF
18. Turn iPad back on again (sorry but this OFF/on is essential)
19. Tap on the Mail app
20. Compose a test email
21. Tap 'send'
Hopefully, after a few seconds of the little whirly thing rotating next to the 3G symbol, you'll hear a 'whoosh' and your email was sent.
What you must remember to do, when switching between Wifi and 3G:
In order for Wifi email and 3G email to live in harmony with iPad, iPad needs to be switched off between using one service or the other, and you will need to ensure that only the correct SMTP server is switched on.
This is not pretty.
Unfortunately, the hopeful statement on the settings screen that indicates that iPad can use several SMTP servers, one after the other, does not work when you switch from Wifi to 3G and back. It seems that iPad Mail app suffers from hyperthymesia and gets confused very easily and has to have its hand held.
This is the only way I have managed to send emails from my POP account over Wifi and 3G on O2. Receiving email is fine with no need to turn iPad off and on.
Don't worry if you forget, and then get an odd message about 'rejected recipients'. Just switch from one SMTP server to the other and turn iPad OFF and on, then reopen the Mail app and the email should send fine.
Mark

Most, if not all internet service providers block the use of SMTP servers that are outside of their network or not provided by the ISP being used for your internet connection at the time unless the SMTP server is authenticated. This restriction is part of an overall effort to prevent spam emanating from the ISP's domain and when connected to a cellular internet network for internet access is no exception.
This has been in place and an issue for a long time - well before the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad were introduced that firmware update 4.0 can't do anything about.
I access two email accounts and both have an authenticated SMTP server. I've never had any problems sending with either account regardless the ISP being used for my internet connection with various wi-fi networks and when connected to AT&T's cellular network.
Most ISPs don't provide an authenticated SMTP server, but a number of other email account providers do. Apple does with a MobileMe account, and so does Google with a Gmail account to name only two.

Mail 3.6 downloads multiple copies of emails from my pop account

Since I auto-upgraded to Mail 3.6, Mail is downloading multiple copies of email from my pop mail account. This did not happen before and I haven't changed any of the mail settings. I have read discussions about a similar problem with an earlier version of Mail and the solution seemed to be deleting some file linked to Mail so it could be rebuilt, but I can't find such a file on my system that I could try deleting.
It may matter that I am not 'strictly' supposed to be using os x 10.5.8 on my powerbook G4 (according to what is said on the packet).
Help please!

@ Tokyodj
Thanks very much for posting this. I was having slightly different issues than the people above - only one of my two POP accounts was being constantly picked up, and I had hundreds of versions of each email... strangely, even after I went to the (Yahoo) account and deleted all the emails out of there. Your solution worked perfectly.
Thanks again!

I can only see three weeks of emails on the imap email account on my iMac even though the same email address set up as a pop account on my iPhone, iPad and another iMac show all my emails. How do I change the setting to see more emails?

I have two iMacs, an iPhone, and an iPad. All use the same email address but the new iMac would only let me set up the email account as an imap account. On this iMac I can only see three weeks worth of emails. On the other iMac, iPhone, and iPad, this email address is set up as a pop account and I can see emails as far back as three years. I use Yosemite on the new iMac and I cannot find out how to change the settings to let me see more than three weeks worth of emails. This is an att&t email account which is basically a Yahoo account.

Nope. It will reset all settings. For fix errors.
Or you can try Logging out and Restart your iPad and Sign in again.

Pop account offline (again)

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