Mac OS X 10.4.2 (#12): Mail.app 2.0.2 -- last resort for Comcast mail sending issues; Spotlight not finding files with asterisks

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 11:53 a.m. PT

4 min read

Mail.app 2.0.2 -- last resort for Comcast mail sending issues Over the past week we've covered a number of solutions for two key issues facing users of specific ISPs (particularly Comcast) in Mail.app 2.0.2 -- the inability to send mail, and the refusal of mail servers to accept valid username/password combinations.

To recap, the issue can sometimes be solved by switching the outgoing port number, using MD5 Challenge-Response and/or turning off authentication for the SMTP server.

We've now received reports from some readers who indicate that it was necessary to create a new account in Mail.app, as well as delete the file com.apple.mail.plist from the ~/Library/Preferences directory before normal operation returned.

One reader writes:

"I also use Comcast and was getting error messages saying outgoing mail did not recognize my password and asking for password verification. Retyping password did not resolve issue. Spent over an hour with Apple tech support. Also unable to resolve by reading preferences in mail. Same problem with outgoing mail server field adding colon and user account name.

"Finally had to create new account, trash the .plist, and drop password authentication."

Drives not unmounting -- more on Norton AntiVirus Yesterday we noted word from Symantec that an issue -- where FireWire drives can sometimes have difficulty unmounting while Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect is active --- has been placed under investigation.

MacFixIt reader Norm reports that the Apple Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities) is sometimes capable of unmounting some afflicted drives that the Finder is not -- as noted in our previously published Mini-Tutorial "Ejecting media in Mac OS X".

Meanwhile, one reader notes a Symantec Uninstall utility for users who choose to remove Norton AntiVirus.

The reader writes:

"In reference to to Symantec Product Manager Mike Romo's comments, trying a second time did not work for me, nor a third and so on. I would try quitting the finder and that didn't help. I would have to log out or even restart to get the drive to unmount. All that ended after removing NAV When I removed NAV, I used the utility that Symantec provides."

Spotlight not finding files with asterisks (*) Yesterday we reported on Spotlight's inability to find files containing a single asterisk in their name. It now appears that Spotlight can find a single asterisk in a file name as long as it is not at the end of the name or a word in the name without an asterisk at the beginning of the name.

MacFIxIt reader W.T. Fritts writes:

"For single word filenames the results were thus: