Mail's gone funny.....

Dalton29 · Mar 2, 2006

My Mail application has started to play up. When I receive new mail and use the 'Apple-Tab' command to change applications, the red rosette appears but is empty instead of showing the number of unread emails I have.

Once in Mail, when there are unread emails, instead of having the red rosette by my Inbox there is a large white circle and the email Headers are now very spaced apart (see attached images).

I've done the usuals with permissions and preferences and there is no change. Any ideas?

Dalton29 · Mar 3, 2006

Quick update, I also use MacUpdate Desktop software which uses the same 'rosette' with a number, again the number is missing. Is this something to do with the UI?

Macman · Mar 6, 2006

yea, sounds like a ui issue, try restarting the systemuiserver process in activity monitor, it controls and manages the ui.
BTW, what version of os x and mail are you using?

Dalton29 · Mar 7, 2006

How would I go about doing this? All I cand find is a button to quit the process, not restart it?

I'm using OSX 10.4.5 and Mail 2.0.

inflexion · Mar 7, 2006

tried the windows fix yet? IE rebooting if not try repair permissions

Macman · Mar 7, 2006

Dalton29 said:
How would I go about doing this? All I cand find is a button to quit the process, not restart it?

I'm using OSX 10.4.5 and Mail 2.0.

its part of the system, so quit it, then it will restart on its own.

Dalton29 · Mar 8, 2006

Macman said:
its part of the system, so quit it, then it will restart on its own.

Ok, I've tried that and its still acting up. I've also tried dumping the prefs and reloading Mail through Pacifist with no change.

It actually started doing this when our IP had to change our network around after our outgoing mail became blacklisted. Apparently someone had managed to get into the windoze side of the network and send millions of spam emails through our server that were traced back to us. They also removed our proxy server after it died. All we had to change was the DNS Server address and remove the proxy settings and then my Mail started acting up.

Not sure if this is what has affected my Mac as others on the network are fine or if its just a coincidence.

In addition, I think this is becoming much more of a system problem rather than just Mail as my Address Book is now very spaced out much like the headers in my emails.