Unread messages in IMAP inbox not fetched unless quit & relaunch Mail.app

I posted a similar question re: same Mail.app behavior under 10.5.x , but it remains unresolved and for some reason the post has been archived so I can't follow up there. please see:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2096360&tstart=0
I want to re-ask the question here now that I've updated to 10.6.2 AND migrated to a brand new iMac, and tried some other debugging - yet my problem persists. Hopefully someone here can help
Problem:
- only affects 2 of 3 users on my iMac. On my main (admin) account, Mail.app works just fine.
but, on affected accounts:
- launching Mail retrieves all unread emails from IMAP account, as expected
- if Mail.app is then left running, any new incoming emails arriving on IMAP server are NEVER retrieved by Mail.app, regardless of the Preference setting of how often to check for mail
- clicking on the Get Mail button similarly fails to retrieve any new mail. it's as though Mail.app thinks there is no new mail on server
- meanwhile new mail on IMAP server is confirmed to exist (e.g. checking via webmail access)
- quitting and relaunching Mail.app then finds the waiting email and shows it in the Inbox, but after that no new emails are ever retrieved without quitting and relaunching again
- while stuck in this "there's no new email" state, rebuilding the Inbox causes unread email on IMAP server to be found and loaded to inbox, however once again after that no new email is ever seen until quit and relaunch (or rebuild inbox again)
debugging steps I have tried, none have changed the problem:
- deleting com.apple.mail.plist file
- rebuilding Inbox, as noted above
- moving ~/Library/Mail folder to desktop, then re-importing all mail messages
since the problem has followed the 2 users from my old iMac to new, it seems whatever is causing the problem was transferred by Migration Assistant. But for the life of me I can't find what's different between my working admin user account and the two other accounts. Perhaps there is some other mail-related settings file or folder that's been corrupted somewhere that I'm not aware of?
has anybody else noticed this behavior with Mail.app, or have other debugging suggestions?
thanks in advance

I get the same behavior, but only on one IMAP account and seemingly only after Mail.app has been running for a while. Once it gets in its wonky state, new incoming messages are ignored by Mail.app no matter how many times I tell it to resynchronize... If I restart Mail.app it will pick up new messages for a while, then stops at some point. My iPhone and webmail client have no problem getting the messages.
I have other IMAP accounts that always behave in Mail.app. So, I think something between Mail.app and particular IMAP servers is a little wonky, but not across the board.
<edit> My one misbehaving account is also a dreamhost account.. </edit>
Ian
Message was edited by: Ian Altgilbers

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Unread messages in IMAP inbox not fetched unless quit & relaunch Mail.app

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