Can't shut down iMac.

I finally bought and downloaded Leopard. And now I can't shut down my computer at all!!! I keep getting this message: The application Mail cancelled shut down.

So I tried to quit Mail but it won't work!!! Please help!

There is no place you can download Leopard legally that I'm aware of.

That out of the way - once in a while a program will be in the middle of something and cancel a shutdown. Have had Mail do it on mine a couple of times over the last year and 1/2. Suggest just waiting a minute or two and try it again. That doesn't work, you can try what I do - push and hold the power button until it turns off. That's not the best way to deal with it, nonetheless, that's what I do. You can also 'force quit' the offending application.

I think he meant bought and installed, as in from the disc you can purchase from most electronic retailers.

Yes, I legally purchased Leopard, and downloaded it from the discs I received from Apple.

You can either do what bobtomay said and hold the power button until it turns off, or just force-quit Mail ( > Force Quit...). Keyboard shortcut is option-command-escape. To quit the active application, do shift-option-command-escape.

Also make sure that all Software Updates have been downloaded from Apple and installed, current version is X.5.6, and then run Repair Permissions.

Don't Hold Down Power For 3 Seconds!!

Don't Hold Down Power For 3 Seconds!!

This is equivalent to having a power failure or ripping out your battery and if you do this every time you want to shut down you are bound to corrupt your filesystem and eventually have to re-install Leopard/Lion, etc.

Force quitting Mail is much safer.

The reason I am here is I am having the same problem - I've also found that Mail does quit, it just takes in the neighborhood of 30 seconds, so another option may be quitting mail (select quit from Mail's menu or hit Command-Q) and then waiting, before shutting down.

But Apple, you should fix this. I wonder if a bug report has been filed ?

Colin

What makes you think this is a bug? It certainly doesn't happen on my machine nor the many that folks are using in these forums. Your mail not shutting down is likely a problem on your end... Check to see if the mail program is still connected to your ISP when it refuses or takes a long time to shut down. Mail will not shut down as long as it's interacting with your ISP, in other words it's still doing something.

chscag said:

What makes you think this is a bug? It certainly doesn't happen on my machine nor the many that folks are using in these forums. Your mail not shutting down is likely a problem on your end... Check to see if the mail program is still connected to your ISP when it refuses or takes a long time to shut down. Mail will not shut down as long as it's interacting with your ISP, in other words it's still doing something.

Click to expand...

If you want to consider it a feature rather than a bug, that is fine with me. However, if you google this and read what you will find, you'll see that many people have this feature and do not like it. Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean that you would not like it, if it were happening to you. And it is happening to a lot of people.

Another data point: when I use Thunderbird, Microsoft Office, etc. it has never been a problem.

As a software developer, my recommendation to Apple on behalf of myself and the many others who have this problem would be to cancel the http request and shutdown after, say 5 seconds would be reasonable ? Not 30 seconds.

As a software developer, my recommendation to Apple on behalf of myself and the many others who have this problem would be to cancel the http request and shutdown after, say 5 seconds would be reasonable ? Not 30 seconds.

Click to expand...

Apple is always open to suggestions, feel free to contact them if you have something to offer. These forums and those of us who post here are not affiliated with Apple.

Bug report

Thanks, okay I submitted a bug report to Apple. I guess that will teach me to complain about things online...


13-Nov-2011 12:05 PM Colin Worth:
'mymachine.spx' was successfully uploaded

13-Nov-2011 12:05 PM Colin Worth:
Summary: Mail.app often takes a long time (~>30 seconds) to quit on my Macbook Pro early 2011 running 10.7.2. If the quit is in response to a request to shutdown the system, the shutdown fails without any useful user feedback, except "Mail.app cancelled Shutdown". Looking at the windows for Mail.app, I check for open windows with new unsent messages that I am working on, but I don't find any. At this point, the user's only recourse is to Google "Mail.app cancelled shutdown" at which point he/she will find many users with the same problem, and learn how to force/quit an app.

Since there was no unsaved input from the User, or modified open documents, it was not necessary for Mail.app to remain open. Mail.app should have terminated whatever activities (for example, a non-responsive http request, message indexing, etc. ) it was involved in, and quit. It is slightly frustrating to most users to have to force quit a regularly used app (or wait a minute before shutting down), and highly confusing for inexperienced users, who have no idea what to do. Selecting restart again often fails, because Mail.app has still not quit. At this point, a suggestion on forums is to: hold down power for five seconds to turn off your computer. You do not want Apple users doing this!

Steps to Reproduce:
I do not know specifically what causes this because it is intermittent. What I do is open Mail, use it normally for a while in conjunction with other activities, like running Xcode. Then shutdown the computer. Since there may be extenuating circumstances, it may be necessary to reproduce some other condition of users with this problem.

Expected Results:
Because there is no unsaved input from the user, Mail should quit in a timely fashion ( < 5 seconds), and it should never cancel a shutdown attempt.

Actual Results:
Mail takes up to 30 seconds to quit. If quit is in response to a request to shutdown the computer, shutdown is cancelled. It does not happen every time, but quite often (>60% of the time) if I need to shutdown my computer, Mail.app cancels shutdown and remains open for another 30 seconds or more. Addtl info: One user mentioned that Mail.app was NOT listed as "Not Responding" in Activity Monitor during the wait for Quit, even though no user feedback was provided.

Regression:

Notes:

Thanks, okay I submitted a bug report to Apple. I guess that will teach me to complain about things online...

Click to expand...

You did more than what most folks would do. Approaching it the correct way get's things done. I wish more folks would do the same. Now let's see if Apple responds.

Carleen said:

Yes, I legally purchased Leopard, and downloaded it from the discs I received from Apple.

Click to expand...

I in no way mean to pick on you, but "downloaded" isn't the correct terminology there and as you can see it confuses people. Technically you are correct, in the sense that "download" means to transfer data from an external source to your computer.

However, these days "downloading" seems to have evolved to refer only to copying information from the internet, with the term "transferring" or "installing" referring to copying information from local sources (disc, hard drive, thumb drive etc).

Curse the ever-evolving nature of lingo and jargon! <shakes fist in air>