Recent problem opening mail in Eudora
MaryL
I will see that it is attempting to pen mail, but the round "indicator"
(I've forgotten the name) just circles on and one, for several minutes at a
time. I can't tell what is coming in or who is sending it, just that Eudora
is attempting to open it. Today, I let that go on for almost 5 minutes,
then I closed down and selected the option to close even though I had
task(s) running. Then, when I next opened Eudora and tried to check for
incoming mail, I got an error message that said: "<Dominant>, Logging into
POP Server, PASS [11:44:57 AM] There has been an error transferring your
mail. I said: PASS <shhhh! Don't tell anyone.> and then the POP server <my
name> said: ERR [IN-USE] account is locked by aother session or for
maintenance, try again." That was the entire message, except that I
substituted "my name" for my home address.
Can anyone help with (1) How can I get mail since now I only get that error
message, and (2) If that can be solved, how can I stop importing mail of the
type I just discussed -- something that seems to go on forever without ever
opening? And does anyone have an idea what might be causing this? I
occasionally had this problem in the past, but it was infrequent. Now it is
an almost every-day occurrence.
I am using Eudora 7.1.0.9 paid version, running under Vista Home Premium.
Thanks,
MaryL
John H Meyers
> Recently, I have had a great many problems opening some mail in Eudora.
> I will see that it is attempting to open mail, but the round "indicator"
> (I've forgotten the name) just circles on and on...
The "spinning yin/yang" means that Eudora is still working on
fetching (downloading) incoming messages from the "POP" server.
> Today, I let that go on for almost 5 minutes,
> then I selected the option to close even though I had task(s) running.
This terminated the download abruptly, like pulling your computer power plug
out of the wall socket without gracefully shutting down the server session :)
> Then, when I next opened Eudora and tried to check for incoming mail,
> I got an error message that said: "Logging into POP Server...
> and then the POP server said: ERR [IN-USE]
> account is locked by another session or for maintenance, try again."
It was your own previous session,
not properly ended with a formal "goodbye" on each end.
A POP server can handle only one requestor at a time,
so it has to completely wrap up any prior session,
sometimes involving copying a lot of files,
especially if there was a lot of mail on the server,
plus a sometimes lengthy delay waiting for a timer
to say "well, I guess the computer I was talking to
hung up on me, so now I'll finally hang up and go away myself,
freeing my phone for another incoming call."
Most POP servers will reset themselves after a while
(try after ten minutes or so). If it never does,
then you'll have to call your ISP, tell them what happened,
and they should be able to reset it for you
(if you can reach anyone who understands what's happening :)
What sort of internet connection do you have? (DSL, dial-up, etc.),
and with what internet connection provider?
Is this your Yahoo (premium?) account you are trying to download,
or some other ISP-provided POP account?
If the latter, does your ISP have a "webmail" site where you can see
how much mail you have on the server, and how large each is?
(if not, try http://mail2web.com or http://myemail.com )
If you have either a slow connection (like dial up)
or a slow POP site (perhaps Yahoo is overwhelmed again),
the only reasonable alternative to waiting for a download to complete
is to tell Eudora to "Skip messages over [30]K in size"
under "Incoming Mail" options -- this will bypass messages
which are either very long or contain larger attachments,
and instead present you with just an introductory "snippet"
of what the message said, plus an indication of how large it was;
this often allows you to get at least the complete list of messages,
plus all shorter messages in their entirety, without having
one huge message block everything standing behind it,
like that bank customer right in front of you
who monopolizes the lone teller all day
to make one complicated transaction :)
Yet another obscure Eudora ability is to hold a keyboard Shift key
while clicking "Check mail," and selecting
"Fetch all message headers to In mailbox,"
which should very quickly retrieve just the basic header information
for each message, leaving the remaining content on the server
for normal retrieval later -- unless the server is soo... busy
that it can't even respond to that simple a task :)
Tell us more about it, as above, and best wishes.
--
MaryL
"John H Meyers" <jhme...@nomail.invalid> wrote in message
news:op.udp92...@miu.edu...
> On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:00:19 -0500, MaryL wrote:
>
>> Recently, I have had a great many problems opening some mail in Eudora.
>> I will see that it is attempting to open mail, but the round "indicator"
>> (I've forgotten the name) just circles on and on...
>
> The "spinning yin/yang" means that Eudora is still working on
> fetching (downloading) incoming messages from the "POP" server.
>
>> Today, I let that go on for almost 5 minutes,
>> then I selected the option to close even though I had task(s) running.
>
> This terminated the download abruptly, like pulling your computer power
> plug
> out of the wall socket without gracefully shutting down the server session
> :)
>
Yes, I figured that is what I had done. It's very annoying, though, to have
that thing just keep spinning for an interminable amount of time. When it
does that, I know that it *eventually* will report that "Eudora got tired of
waiting," so I have waited all that time for nothing. Oddly, I will
frequently get an immediate response if I then try opening mail again -- and
it is usually (but not always) a very short message.
>> Then, when I next opened Eudora and tried to check for incoming mail,
>> I got an error message that said: "Logging into POP Server...
>> and then the POP server said: ERR [IN-USE]
>> account is locked by another session or for maintenance, try again."
>
> It was your own previous session,
> not properly ended with a formal "goodbye" on each end.
>
> A POP server can handle only one requestor at a time,
> so it has to completely wrap up any prior session,
> sometimes involving copying a lot of files,
> especially if there was a lot of mail on the server,
> plus a sometimes lengthy delay waiting for a timer
> to say "well, I guess the computer I was talking to
> hung up on me, so now I'll finally hang up and go away myself,
> freeing my phone for another incoming call."
>
> Most POP servers will reset themselves after a while
> (try after ten minutes or so). If it never does,
> then you'll have to call your ISP, tell them what happened,
> and they should be able to reset it for you
> (if you can reach anyone who understands what's happening :)
>
Eudora finally downloaded mail (one short message) after I rebooted the
computer a couple of times.
> What sort of internet connection do you have? (DSL, dial-up, etc.),
> and with what internet connection provider?
>
I am connected via cable through Suddenlink.net.
> Is this your Yahoo (premium?) account you are trying to download,
> or some other ISP-provided POP account?
>
No, this is not my Yahoo account. I only have the free Yahoo account (not
premium), and I use that for newsgroups so my personal information will not
be obvious. I use Eudora for personal mail (and receive very little spam).
Yahoo has worked fine, and this problem has been exclusively with Eudora.
> If the latter, does your ISP have a "webmail" site where you can see
> how much mail you have on the server, and how large each is?
> (if not, try http://mail2web.com or http://myemail.com )
>
I'll check on that. However, I frequently transfer anything important from
the Inbox to one of my customized mailboxes, then I empty both the Inbox and
the Outbox. I also empty Trash and then Compact Mailboxes, and I have
selected "Delete from server when trash is emptied," So I would not expect
to have a problem with mail on the server. I have also set Options to
delete attachments when I delete a message.
> If you have either a slow connection (like dial up)
> or a slow POP site (perhaps Yahoo is overwhelmed again),
> the only reasonable alternative to waiting for a download to complete
> is to tell Eudora to "Skip messages over [30]K in size"
> under "Incoming Mail" options -- this will bypass messages
> which are either very long or contain larger attachments,
> and instead present you with just an introductory "snippet"
> of what the message said, plus an indication of how large it was;
> this often allows you to get at least the complete list of messages,
> plus all shorter messages in their entirety, without having
> one huge message block everything standing behind it,
> like that bank customer right in front of you
> who monopolizes the lone teller all day
> to make one complicated transaction :)
>
I have already checked "Skip messages over 40 K in size, but I could
experiment by changing it to 30K. If I do that, is there a way to
selectively open messages that I don't want to lose?
> Yet another obscure Eudora ability is to hold a keyboard Shift key
> while clicking "Check mail," and selecting
> "Fetch all message headers to In mailbox,"
> which should very quickly retrieve just the basic header information
> for each message, leaving the remaining content on the server
> for normal retrieval later -- unless the server is soo... busy
> that it can't even respond to that simple a task :)
>
> Tell us more about it, as above, and best wishes.
>
> --
Thanks very much for your help! I'm going to call Suddenlink to see if
there is a problem at that, but I am open to suggestions.
--
MaryL
John H Meyers
> Oddly, I will frequently get an immediate response
> if I then try opening mail again -- and it is usually
> (but not always) a very short message.
"New mail" being one short message
does not guarantee that a lot of "old mail"
might not still be left on the POP server,
which in cases of long accumulation
could still involve a lot of processing at each end.
> I frequently transfer anything important from the Inbox
> to one of my customized mailboxes, then I empty both Inbox and Outbox.
> I also empty Trash and then Compact Mailboxes, and I have
> selected "Delete from server when trash is emptied,"
> So I would not expect to have a problem with mail on the server.
> I have also set Options to delete attachments when I delete a message.
Except for "Delete from server when emptied from Trash,"
all other actions above affect only Eudora's mailbox files
(and other attachment files) on your own computer,
accomplishing no message removal at the POP server end.
If we trash only 10% of our messages, say, that could still leave
90% of all our messages on the POP server, if we have told Eudora
to "Leave mail on server" without also setting a reasonable limit
"Delete from server after [7?] days" -- what are your settings there?
> I am connected via cable through Suddenlink.net
I suppose there could be a cable problem;
after all, they are so slow that their "welcome" home page
still says "Copyright 2007" at the bottom :)
> Yahoo has worked fine, and this problem has been exclusively
> with Eudora [on an ISP standard POP account]
Well, already-received Yahoo mail is viewed via their web site,
where no on-demand fetching from any POP server is involved,
so the situation is not comparable to using Eudora.
For your POP mail,
one could "stage a contest" between Eudora and Outlook Express, say,
to see whether the latter has the same problem; however,
one must take care not to let OE perform any mail fetching
(by refusing to give it the password) until not only
have you completed the basic "wizard" account setup,
but also have gone back into the account's
"Advanced" settings ("Delivery") and told OE to
"Leave a copy of messages on server" (with NO "remove" options)
The first "new mail" check with OE would then attempt to fetch
_everything_ on the server, then subsequent "new mail" checks
would be comparable to what Eudora is already doing.
An alternative test would be to use someone's "webmail"
other than your own ISP's (because some ISPs might
implement it internally without really using POP at all);
at least this shows you how much mail is actually on the server,
not just whether one new small message has recently been appended,
and it sometimes might reveal a slow server ("webmail" actually
usually just fetches headers alone, but you could "race" it
against Eudora's doing exactly the same thing, as mentioned last time).
Can you see how much mail is actually on your POP server,
using either "webmail" or "Fetch all headers"?
If it's very little, then my long discussion wasn't necessary,
although it does exercise my fingers :)
> I have already checked "Skip messages over 40 K in size,
> but I could experiment by changing it to 30K.
The exact number was just a suggestion -- 40K is close enough :)
> If I do that, is there a way
> to selectively open messages that I don't want to lose?
One of the options which appear
when a Shift key is held down while "Check Mail" is initiated
is "Retrieve messages marked for retrieval" -- the "marking"
is done by right-clicking selected message line(s) in the mailbox
and doing "Change server status" to "Fetch."
You normally won't "lose" any messages that aren't completely
fetched, anyway, unless you specifically tell Eudora
to delete them without fetching at all, via changing their
server status to "Delete" or first emptying your Trash of them
before checking mail again, with "Delete from server when
emptied from Trash" in effect (deletion actually occurs
on the next mail check after messages are removed from Trash).
> I'm going to call Suddenlink to see if there is a problem.
They claim to be a "biggie" in the market,
though this is a Sudden revelation to me
(apparently they can't get anywhere near here,
from wherever they now are :)
By the way, do you have any similar problem sending mail,
particularly with attachments? There is a particular
"network card" (and PC motherboard) brand (Nvidia)
which sometimes causes that, if a hardware option is not changed.
Hope we get to the bottom of this issue some time,
although even just lengthily rambling on about it with friends
is either moderately entertaining or minutely informative,
even if ineffective, just like discussing politics :)
Best wishes.
MaryL
"John H Meyers" <jhme...@nomail.invalid> wrote in message
> On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:02:06 -0500, MaryL wrote:
>
>> Oddly, I will frequently get an immediate response
>> if I then try opening mail again -- and it is usually
>> (but not always) a very short message.
>
> "New mail" being one short message
> does not guarantee that a lot of "old mail"
> might not still be left on the POP server,
> which in cases of long accumulation
> could still involve a lot of processing at each end.
>
>> I frequently transfer anything important from the Inbox
>> to one of my customized mailboxes, then I empty both Inbox and Outbox.
>> I also empty Trash and then Compact Mailboxes, and I have
>> selected "Delete from server when trash is emptied,"
>> So I would not expect to have a problem with mail on the server.
>> I have also set Options to delete attachments when I delete a message.
>
> Except for "Delete from server when emptied from Trash,"
> all other actions above affect only Eudora's mailbox files
> (and other attachment files) on your own computer,
> accomplishing no message removal at the POP server end.
>
> If we trash only 10% of our messages, say, that could still leave
> 90% of all our messages on the POP server, if we have told Eudora
> to "Leave mail on server" without also setting a reasonable limit
> "Delete from server after [7?] days" -- what are your settings there?
>
In that section of Options, "Leave mail on server" is *not* checked; "Delete
from server..." says "after 0 days"; and "Delete from server when emptied
from Trash" *is* checked. Should any of this be checked? I would guess,
from your previous remark, that I should change 0 days to some other
setting.
I don't have OE set up and would prefer not to get into that. I don't even
know anything about "webmail" or "Fetch all headers," so you can see that
I'm at a loss here.
I think it has happened a couple of times, but it has not been a frequent
problem when sending.
I have a Dell Inspiron 530 computer, and I have seen refereances to Nvidia
on it.
John H Meyers
> In that section of Options, "Leave mail on server" is *not* checked
That eliminates one whole area of speculation, then :)
No need to change anything -- I was just trying to find out what's going on.
>> By the way, do you have any similar problem sending mail,
>> particularly with attachments? There is a particular
>> "network card" (and PC motherboard) brand (Nvidia)
>> which sometimes causes that, if a hardware option is not changed.
> I think it has happened a couple of times,
> but it has not been a frequent problem when sending.
> I have a Dell Inspiron 530 computer,
> and I have seen refereances to Nvidia on it.
It has Nvidia graphics card, but network (wired) interface
is something integrated on motherboard,
which would be okay if not "nForce" (also by Nvidia),
for which a fix is in these postings:
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showpost.php?p=37606
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showthread.php?t=11569
Other than suggestions made earlier (but evidently not appealing)
and possibly poring through Eudora.log to see what Eudora
and the POP server were saying to each other,
all that's left (as far as my imagination goes)
is to suspect "Suddenlink" (ISP) and keep pestering them about it ;-)
Perhaps try your computer on someone else's high-speed internet
(from a different ISP), or get a free Gmail account (which can
be used as a POP server from which Eudora can download some mail),
and see whether the problem is only with Suddenlink's POP server.
Any ideas from all the other newsgroup readers?
Best wishes.
MaryL
"John H Meyers" <jhme...@nomail.invalid> wrote in message
On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:22:24 -0500, MaryL wrote:
> In that section of Options, "Leave mail on server" is *not* checked
That eliminates one whole area of speculation, then :)
No need to change anything -- I was just trying to find out what's going on.
>> By the way, do you have any similar problem sending mail,
>> particularly with attachments? There is a particular
>> "network card" (and PC motherboard) brand (Nvidia)
>> which sometimes causes that, if a hardware option is not changed.
> I think it has happened a couple of times,
> but it has not been a frequent problem when sending.
> I have a Dell Inspiron 530 computer,
> and I have seen refereances to Nvidia on it.
It has Nvidia graphics card, but network (wired) interface
is something integrated on motherboard,
which would be okay if not "nForce" (also by Nvidia),
for which a fix is in these postings:
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showpost.php?p=37606
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showthread.php?t=11569
Other than suggestions made earlier (but evidently not appealing)
and possibly poring through Eudora.log to see what Eudora
and the POP server were saying to each other,
all that's left (as far as my imagination goes)
is to suspect "Suddenlink" (ISP) and keep pestering them about it ;-)
It's not really that the other suggestions are not appealing. The problem
is that I don't know what I am doing with regard to those suggestions, and I
am concerned about doing something to make matters even worse.
Perhaps try your computer on someone else's high-speed internet
(from a different ISP), or get a free Gmail account (which can
be used as a POP server from which Eudora can download some mail),
and see whether the problem is only with Suddenlink's POP server.
I haven't called Suddenlink yet, but I'm going to make a list and do that
soon. I am growing more and more convinced that the problem may be with
them rather than with Eudora. I recently noticed that I often cannot access
the Internet at the same time that this problem occurs with Eudora, and I
have also noticed that I will sometimes see "Network Access: Local" instead
of "Network Access: Local and Internet." The problem is, that is not
consistent. For example, Eudora at this very moment is going through the
same process I described, but I obviously am able to connect to the Internet
right now.
Thanks for your help! I'll post a message after contact Suddenlink.
MaryL
John H Meyers
> I recently noticed that I often cannot access the Internet
> at the same time that this problem occurs with Eudora,
> and I have also noticed that I will sometimes see "Network Access: Local"
> instead of "Network Access: Local and Internet."
Oh, perhaps that's relevant ;-)
> The problem is, that is not consistent.
> For example, Eudora at this very moment
> is going through the same process I described,
> but I obviously am able to connect to the Internet right now.
In whose part of the Internet does your balky POP server reside?
What would Sherlock Holmes say?
http://www.jokeswarehouse.com/cgi-bin/viewjoke2.cgi?id=20020605
Happy Fourth (to the USA), and best wishes.
MaryL
"John H Meyers" <jhme...@nomail.invalid> wrote in message
On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:25:04 -0500, MaryL wrote:
> I recently noticed that I often cannot access the Internet
> at the same time that this problem occurs with Eudora,
> and I have also noticed that I will sometimes see "Network Access: Local"
> instead of "Network Access: Local and Internet."
Oh, perhaps that's relevant ;-)
> The problem is, that is not consistent.
> For example, Eudora at this very moment
> is going through the same process I described,
> but I obviously am able to connect to the Internet right now.
In whose part of the Internet does your balky POP server reside?
What does this mean? <scratching my head . . .> All I know is that I am
subscribed for both email and Internet through Suddenlink.
What would Sherlock Holmes say?
http://www.jokeswarehouse.com/cgi-bin/viewjoke2.cgi?id=20020605
That's really funny. I enjoyed that one!
Happy Fourth (to the USA), and best wishes.
Thanks!
John H Meyers
> All I know is that I am
> subscribed for both email and Internet through Suddenlink.
Yes, that's what I meant -- if their internet connection is flaky,
perhaps so is their POP server, even when you _can_ browse some web sites.
Now, where's that "snooze" button -- shouldn't it be daylight already? :)
--