Mail.app accounts going offline??

bunner bob

Registered
I notice whenever Mail.app can't get a good 'hook' into the 'net when it's checking mail, it'll automatically take any or all of my accounts offline. For instance, sometimes when my machine's just woken up, or if I'm over at the neighbors surfing with a weak wifi signal. Then I have to manually choose "Go Online" in order to check mail again. This is frankly stupid - Entourage never did anything like this. I can't see what the point is - why they designed it this way, why Mail would even need to 'go offline', and I can't figure out how to get it to stop doing this. All my accounts are POP accounts, not IMAP, so it's not an issue of losing a persistent connection with a server.

Any thoughts about this?

- Bob
 
A thought about this:
this makes very much sense. Esspecially for all those dial-up connections. You don't want to get an error message every 5mins when your comp is checking the pop servers for new mails. Entourage is giving you an error as well (which is not that visible, but still it's there) and actually THIS seems kinda stupid to me. When Mail is running and there is no connection, the best thing to avoid endless error messages is going "offline". And when you have a connection, it will automatically get online again AFTER the next cycle for checking mails. The proceedure is like this: want to check mails; is connection available?
1. yes -> download mails
2. no -> go "offline" and stop sending error messages.
I looove Mail! ;)
 
Huh - so you're saying Mail DOES automatically go back online?

Didn't seem to be doing that for me, but maybe I just didn't notice - I'll have to check. If it does then you're right - better it does go offline. My wife's Entourage is always beeping and clanking when it can't get mail.

Also weird - I never got your response to my original question - I've noticed lately this forum is kind of sketchy about sending notifications.

- Bob
 
I agree with Zammy-Sam. Even on a broadband connection it is annoying to get a warning every few minutes when the POP server on one of my email accounts goes down for some length of time.
 
I think Zammy is saying that once it goes offline, you have to check manually once to start the cycle of scheduled checks. This is how eudora works too. Once I go online again, it's a quick cmd m and I am in the groove. I love it!
 
That's definitely not how Eudora works. I've been using it for years. When a server goes down, it keeps checking per your schedule.
 
That is how Mail works tool. I have sent a request to Apple to provide an option to automatically check periodically and bring the account back online without operator intervention. Who knows, one of my requests for enhancement might some day see the light of day.
 
Hmm - what's funny is, I'm finding Mail DOES go online again all by itself. I turn off airport (on my iBook) and do a 'check for mail' - all the accounts go offline. Then I turn airport back on and sooner or later I notice, all my accounts are online again and I'm getting mail. In fact....I just did it. I'm using Mail 1.3.3, if that makes any difference.

- Bob
 
bobw said:
That's definitely not how Eudora works. I've been using it for years. When a server goes down, it keeps checking per your schedule.

my mistake
I have "don't auto-check when on battery" which is why I thought I had to manually check to start the cycle again.
 
Back
Top