Bizarre Apple Mail Text Entry Problem

Over the weekend a German Mail.app user posted a very odd problem in the forums at MacUser.de.

After trying out Apple Mail for the first time, he found that he could send and receive mail OK, but he couldn’t type anything in the message field of a new email.

Not only that, his Compose window looked quite unusual, with a severely truncated Account selection drop-down menu:

Stuffed_Compose_Window

Numerous suggestions were made — Had he entered his account details properly, entered an SMTP server, repaired Permissions, deleted his account and re-entered the details, entered his username properly? — all to no avail.

Finally, running the 10.4.2 Combo update fixed the problem.

The cause? An incompatible version of PGP (Version 8). Perhaps.

The moral? Disabling third-party software or add-ons is a good trouble-shooting step. Always.

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2 Responses to “Bizarre Apple Mail Text Entry Problem”

  1. Quinton says:

    Hi – I have experienced exactly the same after running the latest Tiger update. Can’t type a thin in new mail; can’t reply to incoming mail; radio buttons don’t work

  2. Tim says:

    Bummer.

    Was it due to PGP in your case as well? Or is it just coincidence in the German user’s experience and the real cause is something else?

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