repeated downloads

[Bill]

A few days ago the same batch of emails re-downloaded every time I opened
windows mail. Re- clicking the send/receive brought up a message that x
of y further emails were being downloaded (they never appeared) followed by
a warning that the POP3 server wasn't responding. I couldn't send emails.
By the end of the day I had about 150 copies of the same 5-10 or so. My
ISP's helpline promise support the following day but when switching on
windows mail appeared to be working properly again. The ISP later emailed
for full details of the fault so presumably they didn't effect a repair!

For future reference, what could have caused this and how can it be
rectified?

Bill

 

[mac]

A few days ago the same batch of emails re-downloaded every time I opened
windows mail. Re- clicking the send/receive brought up a message that x
of y further emails were being downloaded (they never appeared) followed by
a warning that the POP3 server wasn't responding. I couldn't send emails.
By the end of the day I had about 150 copies of the same 5-10 or so. My
ISP's helpline promise support the following day but when switching on
windows mail appeared to be working properly again. The ISP later emailed
for full details of the fault so presumably they didn't effect a repair!

For future reference, what could have caused this and how can it be
rectified?

That problem is usually caused by a corrupt or very large mail on the
server.

The method is to log in to your ISP web site and remove the offending
message.

I bet that they deleted a very large message from your server side inbox?