Big problem: Unable to collect any new email!

Benny, can you suggest any way that I can find out what MailMate is doing in my case? Are there diagnostics I can use or logs that I can check?

I cannot use MailMate any more, and I really miss it!

Thank you

Paul.

I answered my own question after reading this:

http://manual.mailmate-app.com/hidden_preferences.html

When using the following debug variable, a log file is dumped to /tmp/mailmate_imap_subscriptions.log if an error occurs while fetching mailboxes to be displayed for “Edit Subscriptions”. It also enables logging for the Activity Viewer even when the Activity Viewer is closed.

defaults write com.freron.MailMate LoggingEnabled -bool YES

But, with the setting enabled, the log file is not created.

Where is the Activity Viewer log stored? I can't find it.

That hidden preference is only for “Edit Subscriptions” which is not your problem.

Note that the Activity Viewer allows you to select connections in the upper part and then review the logs in the lower part. It'll only log while being open. Logs are not saved to disk (except if using “Help ▸ Send Server Logs”).

With regard to the Inbox. Make sure that the mailbox (INBOX) is online when you look under SOURCES in the mailbox outline. It'll be greyed out if there is a problem. It'll be using a bold font if it is fully synchronized and waiting for new messages to arrive.

Given your very large account: MailMate might not have finished synchronizing the account (fetching all messages) although it sounds like it worked a few days ago. During the initial synchronization MailMate is very bad at keeping the INBOX updated. (Something also often bothering new users with large accounts.)

Let me know if this does not help.

Thanks very much benny.

the INBOX is online and in bold font, and I have selected "Synchronise INBOX" more than once. I have taken it offline and back online a couple of times.

but I do have 3 connections which are very active, doing all sorts of stuff. I would try to copy some of the text, but it moves fast and selection isn't really possible. Also I have now had it running almost continually for several days, and I don't see disk space being consumed.

I do understand if the INBOX was slower due to ongoing synchronisation; and it was for a while (when a lot of disk got chewed during that time). But I don't understand why the INBOX would be working fine for quite a few days, and the suddenly stop syncing, completely.

Yes, that makes no sense. Especially not when the INBOX is in bold.

Try this:

• Open the Activity Viewer.
• Relaunch MailMate (the activity viewer is opened and starts logging).
• Let it run until the INBOX is bolded.
• Use “Help ▸ Send Server Logs”.

I'll review the output and see if there is anything suspicious.

27 GB is quite a lot. Note that you could multi-select mailboxes and take them offline using “Mailbox ▸ Take Offline”. You could do that to everything but the Inbox and see if that makes a difference.

OK I sent you some logs.

I have a pretty deep mailbox hierarchy and it seems that the "offline" status is not inherited by submailboxes. So I can't easily take a lot of mailboxes offline, but I can do that at some point.

Otherwise, I might just delete and recreate the MailMate account and see what happens.

Paul.

That's a huge number of mailboxes.

Are you sure the INBOX is bolded? According to the logs MailMate has not yet put the mailbox in the connected state.

If you hold down ⌥ then you can expand all submailboxes of a mailbox. After that you can select all of them (using ⇧) to “Take Offline”.

Don't start over. It'll just result in refetching all emails.

You're right, the INBOX was not bolded. It only looked bold in contrast to the greyed-out offline mailboxes.

Now, I put most of my mailboxes offline and eventually, after quite a long delay, the INBOX finally went bold.

So, if I can get my mailboxes back online without freezing up the Inbox again, I'm back with MailMate!

Can I suggest/request a few features which would have helped in this situation:

• Prioritise Inbox sync so that it is more responsive and can be used even while other long operations are going on (even if it is a bit slower, which is understood).
• Allow status of mailboxes to be seen more clearly, on a per mailbox basis - eg sync status, % complete etc (if that is possible and make sense)
• Provide some clearer high-level Activity Viewer status messages that are more explanatory about what is happening (eg "downloading message ", "syncing mailbox " etc etc)

Thanks very much for your help with this.

Paul.