Can't receive att.net email

[smislt]

Yesterday, Thunderbird stopped fetching my att.net email. att.net mail is handled by Yahoo mail. My other email accounts, including a yahoo.com email account, are working fine. Why would Thunderbird stop fetching my att.net email?

[DanRaisch]

Close Thunderbird, log onto that account's web mail page and delete the oldest message not yet downloaded to Thunderbird. (Sometimes a message with a malformed header can block the download of that message and those behind it in the download queue.

How is the account set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.

[smislt]

Dan, You must have magical powers! I got a notification of your reply and Thunderbird fetched it. Strange.

[DanRaisch]

Glad to hear that.

[smislt]

I spoke too soon. Although the email notification alert that I got a reply to my question, no other email has come through. I followed you instructions and that didn't help. The account is set up for POP. Any ideas what is going on?

[DanRaisch]

Did you find additional messages on that server that have not been downloaded by Thunderbird?

[smislt]

Yes. Many.

[smislt]

These are my inbound server settings. Are they correct? Server name: inbound.att.net
port: 995

[smislt]

When I click "get messages" for my att.net email, at the bottom of the screen it says "Downloading 1 of 75 messages" yet nothing appears! What would cause this? I haven't been able to receive att.net email since June 8!

[makaiguy]

That is exactly the set of symptoms for the problem Dan described. TBird has always been sensitive to messages with improperly formatted headers, with the exact result you describe -- says it's downloading message X of Y but nothing further happens. You might have had a couple of messages in a row with problem headers and you only deleted one of them. Try it again.

I used to run into this several times a year, but haven't run into it since switching all my accounts over to IMAP from POP.

[smislt]

Wow! Thanks!!! I went through my att.net inbox online and deleted a ton of email. All of a sudden, Thunderbird started to fetch email from my inbox. First time in three weeks. I'm a happy camper again! Have a super Independance Day!