Uh oh, problem with Mail and gmail?

[PeterB]

Getting this message for some older messages I'm trying to read:

"The message from "You" concerning “Re: This email” has not been downloaded from the server. You need to take this account online in order to download it."

... but the account IS online, what gives ???

I don't remember ever having had this problem before, so maybe it is something new with either Mail and/or gmail? (The mail in question is still on the gmail server, I have Mail.app set to not delete things once they've been downloaded.)

[Ken Sp.]

When Mail app cannot get messages for awhile--it takes that account offline.

In Mail app just go to mailboxes, and take the account online

[modelamac]

The problem resides in Mail, not in Gmail. You can try to get Mail to download the Gmail stuff again. The results may be duplicates, one with that message and a good one, or it won't download them as the headers are already in Mail and therefore old.

I very much dislike what happens with Mail with events like this.

Try to rebuild Mail when so prompted gets you a "we promise not to lose any email during the rebuilding process....".

Confident, you rebuild Mail.

The result is 1000 duplicates of stuff you deleted in the last six months, all with that same message, and the last weeks email completely missing.

My inbox went from 8xx emails to 28xx after the rebuild, but nothing later than a week ago, apparently when the problem commenced (without warning). The week went by before the alarm was raised by Mail, and so that week of email went poof.

Thjis happened once before, about 8 months ago. I learned the lesson then not to trust Mail to retain everything as it should. I've been simultaneously running Thunderbird, downloading the important stuff from the ISP server mailbox before allowing Mail to touch it.

Why am I still using Mail? I like the way it works a bit better than Tbird. If Leopard does not offer an improvement, however, Mail will be history on this Mac.

[PeterB]

Ken Sp., I tried Mailbox > Go Online ... that did not help

modelamac, yes, I figured it's a problem with Mail and not gmail (since the messages are all still there). I am tempted to try a mailbox rebuild, but I think I'll make a full backup first...