Stopped fetching from POP

Question

Gmail POP worked fine until 2 or 3 weeks ago.
Then it simply stopped fetching new mails, which are otherwise normal in web Gmail of course.
I used this to turn on logging: "~/Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts/Turn on Logging.scpt". Here's what I see in the log of the POP interaction:
After receiving UIDL and LIST of new emails, Mail.app tells me about the ones too large (over 1MB... since I'm on cell phone modem!)and then simply QUITs after receiving the LIST of new emails!?!?
Sending is fine.
On fetch attempts after the first download where I skipped the large emails, it simply QUITs immediately after receiving the LIST.
It seems non-Gmail users have similar issues.
I also get sometimes a NSError "The connection to the server pop.gmail.com on port 0 timed out."
Some people had success by deleting Mail account and recreating. I tried and it downloaded most of the already downloaded messages, then stopped at an earlier email than with the previous account.
Any suggestions for troubleshooting are very welcome, and solutions too
Thank you,
cat

Answer 1

hi, thks for answering.
Re: NSError - the script "~/Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts/Turn on logging.scpt" logs to "console.log" essentially the POP protocol's session, but also the overall socket activity, so socket errors come up in there as well.
My cell phone modem connection has reasonable throughput but terrible latency so timeouts occur frequently.
I'd love to be able to set a longer timeout, maybe up to 60 seconds, for mail related activity. Is there a way?
Re: Network Port Configuration: I only have one active, the "Bluetooth" to my cell modem.
Re: Gmail POP settings: they have always been on "Get from now on", and never changed since I started using Gmail POP last March or so.
Re: Mail choking on some messages. My impression is that after having several messages to skip, after 5 messages to skip say, Mail stopped altogether to consider new messages to download!! I can't really erase them since I expect to download all my messages when my bandwidth will be adequate (f.ex. when I get to an urban area).
This maybe related to another odd and peeving behaviour: the POP download fetches a decreasing number of messages in a session. So, whereas initially I would get all messages, i.e. two dozen or more, in a fetching session, this number diminished right until it got to 1 per session, then it stopped. So Mail/Gmail would get/send only one message each time I press "Get Mail". Then, after several days, no message at all!
It feels like Gmail or Mail has some algorithm for deciding how many messages out of all the ones waiting to be downloaded to fetch in each session; and this algorithms gets confused with time.
Of course I can't decide who's the culprit between Mail.app or Gmail, perhaps they both have some logic about how many messages to transfer via POP.
NEWS: today, since Sept 19, the POP connection transfers again, but only 1 message at a time (there are over 350 waiting)!!! Why only 1? Do I have any control over the POP session?
I thought of using another client to get email and then transfer it; the problem is 1) little time for this and 2) low/unreliable bandwidth for downloading Thunderbird. And 3) I want my mac apps to support my pride in apple products