Mail not loading content

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Level 1

36 points

Mail not loading content

When I go to mail and click on an email it shows the header only - It will sit like that for several minutes. I have found a couple of ways to open an email in an "emergency" and hopefully these methods that have an effect might show the brains out there what is up.

1/ Force Quitting Mail and then opening while holding shift works for opening 2 emails then reverts to just showing the header. Additionally, if I open those 2 emails and come out of them, then try and open those same emails then again I only get the heade

2/ If I click on an email, but instead of clicking it to open, I click on "Forward" any mail will immediately open and place into an email ready to forward it. Of course using this method it doesnt allow you to click on links within a forwarding mail plus when you have read it you then need to delete the Draft you will have made as a consequence. Also, the mail you have opened using this method will still only show headers if you try the normal way afterwards.

I have tried booting in safe mode, exiting and restarting but to no effect (maybe opens two as in 1/ above). This has been doing this for some time

What would these actions indicate please - Running Monterey 12.7.6

iMac 27″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Oct 12, 2024 3:45 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

175,912 points

Oct 12, 2024 9:41 AM in response to eyephone5c

Mail in Monterey and probably earlier versions of macOS have a long-standing bug that will have messages go blank at some random time. This seems to be more prevalent with IMAP accounts, but it may affect other mail types as well. There is no fix other than to restart Mail, sometimes a couple of times, which will get Mail to show the body of the message again for a while. Eventually the problem will occur again, at which time you have to "rinse and repeat".

The only permanent solution is, according to Apple Engineering, to update to a newer version of macOS which, for those of us running older Macs for which Monterey is the last version our systems can run, is of course impossible. Or use a different email client.

Regards.

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Answer 2

eyephone5c Author

Level 1

36 points

Oct 12, 2024 11:00 AM in response to varjak paw

Thanks for your reply - Annoying as it has not always done this - It has been like it for maybe a year, previously on Monterey it worked fine so its not beyond Apple to resolve it I imagine - just no motivation I suppose. When you kindly mentioned a possible resolution by using another email client do you have any suggestions as to which could be a good move? My main email is AOL followed by Google and some minor ones the rest of the family use.

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Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

175,912 points

Oct 12, 2024 12:21 PM in response to eyephone5c

Yep, no motivation, not for a version of macOS that was replaced so long ago.

I don't have any suggestions for an email for AOL. For Gmail I was using MimeStream and was quite happy with it. I just don't use Gmail now so I let my subscription to MimeStream lapse.

Regards.

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Answer 4

eyephone5c Author

Level 1

36 points

Oct 12, 2024 3:34 PM in response to varjak paw

Thanks and yes I sort of get that - However, when I bought the computer Mail worked fine - as did everything else. I don't call software "development" amendments that reduce functionality to the point of redundancy. Lets face it, if you buy a car that does 50 to the gallon - there would be outrage if "VW or "Ford" tapped in and made it do 25. So I would prefer they left well alone and saved the tinkering for later versions, for those that wish to change their computers every year - they cannot blame everything on security. Mail has no point at all if it cannot handle one of the single biggest functions of a computer. Those basic functions should be bedrock and supported no matter what - Third party software, well thats up to them

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