Pop3 email account stuck 'preparing to retrieve messages'

Question

Hi,
I've seen others with this issue, but so far none of the suggestions has worked for me. I have three accounts in Mail, two gmail ones, and one pop account. The latter hasn't been able to retrieve messages since the 6th of March. I've moved the messages downloaded plist, the envelope index files from the Library, I've run disk permissions and repaired the disc, I've trbuilt the mailbox, and reindexed Spotlight.
The messages come through on my ipad and phone okay, just not on Mail on my Mac. Interestingly, last night I decided to try Thunderbird instead. I set up the account and nothing! The progress indicator at the bottom says 'Downloading message 1 of 87 ...' but nothing comes through.
I'm waiting to hear from my ISP, but as emails comethrough to the ipad, etc, I doubt they'll have much to say.
Any thoughts would be most appreciated.
Cheers,
Kev.

Answer 1

Hi again, and please forgive the bump. My ISP hasn't suggested anything, as expected. However, looking in the Console this morning for Mail entries came up with this:
16/03/2014 08:51:30.000 syslogd[17]: Configuration Notice:
ASL Module "com.apple.mail" claims selected messages.
Those messages may not appear in standard system log files or in the ASL database.
16/03/2014 08:53:50.128 WindowServer[231]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Mail" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
16/03/2014 08:53:53.388 WindowServer[231]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "Mail" after 4.26 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
16/03/2014 08:54:59.911 Mail[1259]: -[MFPOPConnection fetchMessages:totalBytes:] failed: Error Domain=MCMailErrorDomain Code=1029 "The attempt to send data to the server “(null)” failed." UserInfo=0x60000124a6b0 {NSLocalizedDescription=The attempt to send data to the server “(null)” failed.}
Is any of this helpful?
Cheers,
Kev.