Self-Service Support Alert: this article is available for customers on help.astound.com

Introduction

Note: The message 'Retrieving 1 of xx' with less than xx messages displaying, does not indicate missing email

• Your email is loading; please wait for all mail to load

Resolution Steps

1. The Email Spool is Clogged:
    
   • If you keep downloading the same messages, you likely have a clogged mail spool.  
     
     • A large email or an email with a corrupted header is causing your email program to time out, and interrupt the download, without giving an error message
     
     
     • Since the email program did not finish the download, it never marked the messages as downloaded and left them on the server  
     
     
     • The next time you download your mail, all of the same messages are still on the server  
       
       • Then the same thing happens again, and you never see the messages that come after the offending message
   • The solution is to use RCN's web-based mail client to remove the offending message from the server at http://webmail.rcn.net  
   
   
   • RCN Webmail displays all of your mail on the server, and you can delete mail from the servers 
   
   
   • When you delete the message(s) with RCN Webmail, message(s) are permanently removed from the servers 
     
      
2. Your Email Program is Setup to Leave Messages on the Server
   
   • If you are not repeatedly downloading the same messages, you are likely not missing any email 
   
   
   • Most likely, there is mail on our server that you have already downloaded 
   
   
   • You may have your email program to leave your messages on the mail server  
     
     • Also, your email program may occasionally download an email, mark it as downloaded, and neglect to remove it from the server
        
   • Example:
     • Lets assume that you currently have 4 messages on our servers and that you have downloaded them all 
     
     
     • Now a new email arrives bringing your total messages to 5, but the number of unread messages is 1 
     
     
     • When you check mail, your mail program reports "Retrieving 1 of 5" and only downloads one new message 
     
     
     • It may then delete all five messages from the server, leaving you wondering where the other four messages are 
   • This can also happen when you receive attachments that have been split by the person who sent them, possibly without them even knowing it  
   
   
   • When you receive the split attachments, your e-mail program recombines them into a single e-mail, but still reports the "missing" numbers  
   
   
   • The solution is to use RCN's web-based mail client to remove the offending message from the server at http://webmail.rcn.net    
      
3. A File on your System Needs to be Removed
    
   • This is a rare source of the problem that you have been experiencing, but it can happen 
   
   
   • You should only consider this possibility after you have looked at the first two possibilities
   
   
   • Check with your mail client vendor for support articles that may identify a fix