Timeout Retrieving messages (Mac)

[jcm3]

Hi, I have had Thunderbird installed for a while now, and started having trouble with retrieving of messages recently.

I've been mucking about trying to fix the trouble, and have now made it much worse. Instead of deleting the passwords from the place where they are stored, I think I've deleted the path. And I have installed the Beta over the release version, in hopes an install wizard would help. It didn't.

Any guidance would be helpful. I've had to resort to Gmail in the meantime, and its awful.

[DanRaisch]

What makes you think you deleted the path (and which path?)

[jcm3]

I went to Preferences - Security - Passwords - Saved Passwords, clicked on the path and pressed delete.
The account was listed twice, so I thought I would fix that.

[DanRaisch]

That doesn't delete anything except the password. There can be two separate passwords per account, one for the incoming server and one for the outgoing (SMTP) server. Just delete the second entry you saw for that same account. Close and restart Thunderbird and you should see a dialogue box asking for the account password when it connects to that server.

[jcm3]

I deleted all if the entries, I get a request for the password for my other email servers, but not this one. Just a message that it timed out.

[DanRaisch]

Did you close and restart Thunderbird after deleting that entry?

[jcm3]

yes

[DanRaisch]

OK, then we'll have to look at other factors.
* How is that mail account set up, as POP or IMAP?
* Do you regularly compact your folders? Check http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders for more information on compacting folders.
* Any recent changes in your computer or software configuration that might be relevant, other than the deletion of the passwords?
(including OS or Thunderbird updates, adding extensions or themes, etc. and any security program updates)

[jcm3]

IMAP
Yes, compact whenever prompted
Updated Thunderbird to Beta 52.0b4 after the trouble, as I was on the latest release and was looking for an update/fix.

[DanRaisch]

Never a good idea to switch from the release version to a beta version when having problems. You're just as likely to find as yet uncorrected bugs, digressions, incompatibilities in the beta version as you are to find solutions to your particular problem.

Close Thunderbird, Try logging onto the web mail page of that account and deleting the oldest message not yet downloaded to TB. Sometimes TB will choke on a message with a malformed header which then will block the download of all messages coming after that one. Launch Thunderbird and see if there is improvement.

[jcm3]

That did it. I deleted the last couple of messages, restarted TBird, getting email now.

Thank You.

[DanRaisch]

You're welcome.