Preparing to retrieve messages... forever

Sometimes I check my email connected with my mobilephone or a bad wireless connection. If I get disconnected when Mail is checking for new messages - in the middle of downloading a bigger email... it seems like the Mail app get serious problems. The account that was disconnected cannot check mail anymore, and hangs with the activity "Preparing to retrieve messages" forever. The only way I can get the specific account to work again is to check the pop-account and download the messages with an another email program. When the pop-server is empty it seems like the Mail app resets and it will allow me to check for new mail again.
It's very frustrating!
Please Apple! Is it something to do, other than having using my old Eudora program just to reset the account. And why is it possible to download messages with Eudora?
Someone with the same problem?

nothing changed on both ends, not just my computer but also the server. Another kicker is a fellow employee has had the same issue for months before I ever had it. And another colleague doesnt have the issue at all. I tried re-installing mail, deleting all preferences, all accounts and installed the app from disc and that did not work either.

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Help...my email is stuck at "preparing to retrieve messages"

all of my connections are green-lighted,
i've tried starting and restarting
i've taken accounts offline and then back online
i've looked for the IMAP/account concerned/offline cache to delete it but couldn't find it...
....when i check new mail it spins and spins and under window/activity, it's stuck at "preparing to retrieve messages."
i can SEE occationally a flash of the status bar lower left saying "incoming mail, 2 of 174" or some such, but it then disappears and NO new messages come in. help!

I'm having the same problem.
Bought a new iMac that had Snow Leopard when shipped. Transferred everything fine from my PowerPC iMac running Leopard to the new iMac with Snow Leopard. Got everything setup and then received my free upgrade notification from Apple.
Performed the upgrade and since then Mail is forever preparing to import messages, but only for 1 of the 2 login accounts.
Mac OS X 10.7.1 Lion
2.93 ghz intel core i7
8 GB 1333 mhz DDR3

Preparing to retrieve messages...

I have a pop account setup in mail to access my work email. The email server is on an exchange server and the pop account has worked for two years. Then all the sudden it stopped. Nothing changed but it gets stuck on "Preparing to retrieve messages...", no error messages it just sits there for two minutes preparing and then stops. It sees the pop server and I can send messages out. Even when I click on "get info" for the account, it shows all the messages on the server and even shows that they are not downloaded. Does anyone know what is going on or how to fix this? thanks.

nothing changed on both ends, not just my computer but also the server. Another kicker is a fellow employee has had the same issue for months before I ever had it. And another colleague doesnt have the issue at all. I tried re-installing mail, deleting all preferences, all accounts and installed the app from disc and that did not work either.

Pop3 email account stuck 'preparing to retrieve messages'

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.

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.

Mail hangs trying to retrieve messages

I'm baffled by a recent problem.
When retrieving messages (from my gmail account) all I get is the spinning icon - not the beach ball, the little grey circle thing. It just spins, and will do so forever. I then have to 'force quit' Mail in order to close the program.
I have no trouble accessing new mail through the gmail webmail site, neither do I have any other connection problems. I ran Connection Doctor and it reported everything was fine.
Sending mail seems to be working fine - it's just receiving that's the problem.
Since reading a few other posts I have run the 'Rebuild Mailboxes', and repaired permissions. Neither of these did anything helpful.
Any help will be most appreciated...
thanks
Mac Book Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 GB RAM

Thanks to the discussion in the post 2 minutes earlier my problem is resolved - moved the MessageRules.plist and MessageRules.plist.backup to the Desktop and everything seemed to work.
Too bad it didn't solve the earlier posters problem

Mail won't retrieve messages?

Hi there
I just got my first mac, a MacBook Pro. I have been setting it up today, and all was going well. I logged in my mail account and it was retrieving all my emails from my hotmail account (past messages that I have already read). Then randomly it stopped working, I can still use the app, but it has stopped receiving emails, even though it is not yet up to date. I have received new messages that came through on my iPhone but nothing on my mac. I have tried opening Mail's activity monitor and then clicking get mail. It connects to my hotmail account, says checking for new mail, the switches to "preparing to retrieve new messages" and stays there for quite a while, then eventually just goes blank. Any ideas what the problem is? I have tried closing the app and opening it again, restarting the computer etc.
Thanks in advance for any help

Judy,
Welcome to the Discussions.
If you Upgraded from 10.4.11 or earlier to Leopard 10.5.6, it is probably what has been covered by the support document at the link below:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2537
If you also find any files named to include MessageSorting (which would mean you once have upgraded from a version of OSX earlier than 10.4), remove those, also, but never restore those.
To find the correct location for the Mail folder, open a Finder window, click on the icon of a house in the Sidebar (this is known often as "Home"), click on Library in that Home user directory, and then to open the Mail folder found there.
Ernie

Mail is stuck at Preparing to Import Messages

Mail is stuck at Preparing to Import Messages

I'm having the same problem.
Bought a new iMac that had Snow Leopard when shipped. Transferred everything fine from my PowerPC iMac running Leopard to the new iMac with Snow Leopard. Got everything setup and then received my free upgrade notification from Apple.
Performed the upgrade and since then Mail is forever preparing to import messages, but only for 1 of the 2 login accounts.
Mac OS X 10.7.1 Lion
2.93 ghz intel core i7
8 GB 1333 mhz DDR3

My mac mail is stuck on 'preparing to import messages'during set up

So I'm about to launch my website, and need to connect my web account to my mac mail . I re-installed it with the disk today. But when I started the set up process it seems to be stuck on the first stepI let it go for hours and no change , I've tried on several occasions to no avail . I'm cluess as to what to do next. If I haven't provided enough info pleas ask and I will do my best to get it to you. Thank so much in advance for any help!
Mac os x 10.6.3
2 ghz intel core 2 duo
1 gb 667 mhz DDR2 SDRAM
Snow leopard

I'm having the same problem.
Bought a new iMac that had Snow Leopard when shipped. Transferred everything fine from my PowerPC iMac running Leopard to the new iMac with Snow Leopard. Got everything setup and then received my free upgrade notification from Apple.
Performed the upgrade and since then Mail is forever preparing to import messages, but only for 1 of the 2 login accounts.
Mac OS X 10.7.1 Lion
2.93 ghz intel core i7
8 GB 1333 mhz DDR3

MAIL.app hung on "Preparing to import messages" screen

Hi, I've been using a MacBook Pro for the last 4 months (coming from the PC environment). When I start using my Mac, I didn't like the MAIL.app at the beginning, I never finish the account setting in it because I didn't have an .mac account. For That time, I have use Thunderbird with no problem. But now that I got myself a .mac trial account, I would like to use MAIL.app.
Here come the problem : Every time I launch the MAIL.app, After the "Welcome to Tiger Mail" screen, MAIL start to Import messages. I get the "Preparing to import messages" screen with the blue&white stripe bar cycling... But It goes forever!
If after 30mins I decide to cancel the process, I get an exception error : EXCBADACCES (0x0001).
What Can I do?
Thank You

Hi phototech1974.
Not sure what does having a .Mac account have to do with wanting to use Apple Mail as your mail client. Mail is a standard mail client that can be used to access any mail account that provides POP or IMAP access...
Anyway, if you’ve never used Mail before, you may just get rid of the Mail data files present in your home folder as a result of you having tried to set it up in the past, and set up Mail again from scratch as follows:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/. Move the entire Mail folder out of there, to the Desktop.
3. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Preferences/. Locate com.apple.mail.plist and move it to the Desktop.
If all is well and you don’t miss anything, the files on the Desktop can be deleted, although you may want to keep them for a while, just in case.
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 folder path here, doing Go > Go to Folder in the Finder, and pasting the folder path there.

Can I retrieve messages from a blackberry email address in Mail for OS X?

I'm wondering if I can configure Mac OS X Mail to retrieve messages from a blackberry email address.
Thanks.

lte me know if my question doesn't make sense.

TS3899 In the past I have been able to retreive all messages not deleted in the inbox of my mailbox. This week I have not been able to acces messages received prior to 9/10/13. what can I do to retrieve messages eceived prior to 9/10/13.

Until recently I have been able to retrieve all messages not deleted i m mailbox "inbox". Today I can only retrieve messages from 9/10/13 to present. How can i retreive all previously sent messages that were not deleted?

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Tap the account in question > Mail days to sync - increase the time to sync.

ITunes sync with Outlook 2013 preparing to sync runs forever

iTunes sync with Outlook 2013 preparing to sync runs forever, what is the problem?

I have updated addresses and names in the iPhone. When I sync with Outlook it takes the updated name portion, but does not pick up the address from the iPhone. The Whitepages app (pretty handy app) will update my iPhone contact list, but I cannot then transfer that information over to my Outlook contact list. This all needs to work together. Solutions?

My time capsule is full and when I attempt to back up, I only receive a preparing back up message and the earliest and most recent back up dates remain the same. Why are the oldest backups not being deleted to make room for the newest backups?

My time capsule is full and when I attempt to back up, I only receive a preparing back up message and the earliest and most recent back up dates remain the same. Why are the oldest backups not being deleted to make room for the newest backups?

linda mariefromharper woods wrote:
My time capsule is full and when I attempt to back up, I only receive a preparing back up message and the earliest and most recent back up dates remain the same. Why are the oldest backups not being deleted to make room for the newest backups?
It may be in the process of making room. What version of OSX are you on? (That process can be excruciatingly slow on Leopard or Snow Leopard backups over a network; Lion has improved it greatly.)
A clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. That should help you figure out what's going on. If in doubt, copy and post them here (but if the same ones repeat over and over, drop most of the duplicates).
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Can't see msgs in UWC / reconstruct fails with cannot retrieve message uid

I have restored several email accounts into a test email account. I'm trying to move some of the .msg files around so that they are easier to find. I have created some new folders and when I move the messages into the folder, I cannot see them in the web client. If I run reconstruct, I get
ERROR: Inconsistent information: 0 idx records 41 messages 0 expunged
Reconstructing...
cannot retrieve message uid 590
cannot retrieve message uid 807
cannot retrieve message uid 911
cannot retrieve message uid 915
cannot retrieve message uid 1198
cannot retrieve message uid 1286
etc where the number at the end is the name of the .msg file.
# imsimta version
Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-4.01 (built Aug 3 2007; 64bit)
libimta.so 6.3-4.01 (built 17:28:45, Aug 3 2007; 64bit)
SunOS message1 5.10 Generic_127111-02 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V245
Normally, after restoring email, I have to recreate the mail folders (either via mboxutil or manually via the UWC or a client), then run reconstruct. Even then, often the messages will show as 'deleted' until I either move them to a different folder or go into the UWC and mark them as undeleted. At this point, I can't see the recently restored messages at all in the UWC. They are on the server. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

In general, manually moving files around inside the store like this should be discouraged.
reconstruct is telling you something is wrong:
ERROR: Inconsistent information: 0 idx records 41 messages 0 expunged
Reconstructing...
cannot retrieve message uid 590
cannot retrieve message uid 807
cannot retrieve message uid 911
cannot retrieve message uid 915
cannot retrieve message uid 1198
cannot retrieve message uid 1286The first line is to be expected based on what you have done. The store.idx indicates there are no messages in the folder. But it found 41 .msg files. So it is going to rebuild store.idx to fix that.
But then there is some problem with accessing the .msg files. Possibilities would include:
- wrong ownership/permissions?
- the .msg file being in the wrong NN subdir ??
If those guesses do not lead to anything, try truss on the reconstruct command to see what happens when reconstruct tries to open those files.

TS2755 How can I retrieve messages that I accidentally cleared?

How do I retrieve messages that were accidentally cleared?

If it's on iMessage go to another iMessage device that's currently set up with your account and it might be there. If it's a normal text, go online or contact your provider to see your incomming and outgoing messages.

Preparing to retrieve messages... forever

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