Many thanks for your replies…they are very helpful and I think have narrowed down the issue. I can’t see that it is anything other than an Avast issue. Everything else is a constant; the only thing I’ve changed is installing Avast which has stopped email being delivered to me from the mail server.

zhoupeng: thank you for your post. I think you have identified the issue that is the same as mine. I tried (following advice from Avast technical support) switching off the “Enable IPv6” (they didn’t mention the Scan Secure Connection idea), but this has not completely solved the issue as my “mail@…co.uk” mailbox got stuck this evening. I then left the “Enable IPv6” switched off and in addition turned off the “Scan Secure Connection” and hey presto all of the stuck emails suddenly arrived. Can you tell me if I should leave “Mail Shield” enabled or turn this function off too?

moroni: I have pasted some of the message from the console.app as follows, (I have edited it very slightly to remove a load of repeated lines in today’s report, otherwise it would have gone on for ages!). I can’t make head nor tail of the output, but I am guessing that you can. Any ideas? There doesn’t appear to be any specific reference to a mailbox error, but there are a number of references to “timeouts”, “SSL” and “no such directory”…can you decipher it for me?

Thank you all for your help.
Chris

15/07/2013 22:26:23.000 kernel[0]: com.avast.AvastFileShield: Unmount of /Volumes/Cathy Clone detected: Cleaning cached entries.
16/07/2013 19:07:44.766 com.avast.proxy[112]: Starting daemon.
16/07/2013 19:07:44.774 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error opening log file: /var/log/avast/proxy.log: No such file or directory
16/07/2013 19:07:44.774 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to scan socket: /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.mail: No such file or directory
16/07/2013 19:07:44.775 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to scan socket: /Library/Application Support/Avast/socket.web: No such file or directory
16/07/2013 19:07:45.000 kernel[0]: com.avast.AvastFileShield: Started.
16/07/2013 19:07:45.117 com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.avast.account[117]) Exited with code: 2
16/07/2013 19:07:45.121 com.avast.proxy[112]: client.dropbox.com:https: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
16/07/2013 19:10:55.243 launchctl[297]: launchctl: no plist was returned for: /Users/B??&C??/Library/LaunchAgents/com.avast.install.plist
16/07/2013 19:10:55.243 launchctl[297]: launchctl: no plist was returned for: /Users/B??&C??/Library/LaunchAgents/com.avast.install.plist
16/07/2013 19:11:10.123 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 19:12:17.482 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 19:12:28.000 kernel[0]: com.avast.AvastFileShield: Unmount of /private/tmp/UpdateEngine-mount.h7BGocSlD2 detected: Cleaning cached entries.
16/07/2013 19:13:00.000 kernel[0]: com.avast.AvastFileShield: Unmount of /private/tmp/UpdateEngine-mount.4u0KCUMhi3 detected: Cleaning cached entries.
16/07/2013 19:13:03.940 com.avast.helper[422]: Pop socket closed by peer
16/07/2013 19:13:17.609 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 19:32:08.740 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 19:33:12.668 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 19:42:08.810 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 19:44:11.627 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 19:45:11.176 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 19:47:15.082 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 19:56:08.832 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 19:58:11.605 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 20:14:08.674 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 20:14:12.684 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 20:15:06.502 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:24.877 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:25.002 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:27.473 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:30.759 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 21:41:31.195 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:31.195 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:31.293 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:34.768 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 21:41:38.468 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:38.499 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:38.541 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:41:41.546 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error connecting to server: connection timeout
16/07/2013 21:41:57.673 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): Operation timed out
16/07/2013 21:43:32.206 com.avast.proxy[112]: SIGHUP received. Restarting.
16/07/2013 21:43:32.206 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error opening log file: /var/log/avast/proxy.log: No such file or directory
16/07/2013 21:47:05.990 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:47:37.126 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:47:41.387 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:47:48.275 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:48:19.714 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): EOF
16/07/2013 21:48:19.714 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): EOF
16/07/2013 21:48:19.715 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): EOF
16/07/2013 21:48:19.715 com.avast.proxy[112]: SSL_read(): EOF
16/07/2013 21:49:01.082 avast![2077]: event_master_disconnected
16/07/2013 21:51:05.957 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer
16/07/2013 21:52:16.331 com.avast.proxy[112]: SIGHUP received. Restarting.
16/07/2013 21:52:16.331 com.avast.proxy[112]: Error opening log file: /var/log/avast/proxy.log: No such file or directory