Help Unable to delete email message - Force Close

[chackett]

I've been enjoying my Incredible since launch. Love it.

Non-rooted, stock Incredible.

Today I got a "SoAndSo is now following you on Twitter" message, and I can't delete it.

If I long-press the message in my inbox and select "Delete" from the menu, I get a "The Application Mail (process...) "Force Close" message and I have to restart mail. This error and behavior is repeatable.

If I select "Menu -> Delete" from the in-box, the message dissappears, and is not available to "select" for deletion.

If I try and just select the message to read it, the screen quickly flashes as though it were about to open the message, but immediately returns to the inbox screen.

If I get a new message, I am able to delete it with no problem. It seems to be specific to only this message.

Has anyone else seen this? Is there a workaround. I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[BrainZblown]

Remove the email account and then re-add it. I had the same problem.

 

[SurplusGadgets]

This same issue has bugged me for over a year. About once a month a new "phantom" message is added. One account had five there clogging up the screen. Another had an "unread" message that would cause the widget to constantly show new mail. Deleting the account is not an option because I want the history of messages in the Trash and Sent to refer too. I finally did a bit more digging and believe there is a fix. Tricky but works reliably if you know what you are doing. Better than factory resetting the phone OR deleting the mail account and losing all the messages -- which is what Sprint/HTC/everyone seems to recommend. Especially given they keep coming back.

The problem seems to be when the message itself gets deleted from the folder /data/data/com.htc.android.mail/app_mail/ but the entry is not deleted (or modified) in /data/data/com.htc.android.mail/databases/mail.db. This seems to happen arbitrarily (timing issue in the code?); even when I have not tried to delete the message from the Inbox. Sometimes when I have not read it yet but deleted it from the server. (Suspect the app creates the entry in the DB before it downloads the message then does not clean-up when the message is no longer available to download.)

The solution to remove the phantom message is to use an SQLite editor (like in the add-on to Root Explorer) and delete the entry for that message in the "messages" table inside Mail.db. [Note: you need a rooted phone.] So once you enter the editor for this database and select the "messages" table, set the "filter" to find something more unique in the subject column -- the second, smaller font line of the phantom message header displayed. Then to further refine and find the correct row, try and match the date that appears in the phantom message. As the DB stores the date in the 1970-start-of-time format, I usually look in the "_headers" column for a readable date. Key is to feel confident about finding the row/record of the phantom message. Once you do, simply press-and-hold (in Speed Software's SQLite Editor) to bring up a menu of actions. Select "Delete Record". Refresh the mail application and the phantom message should disappear. This has worked reliably as long as you select the correct message. (note: the header dates are sometimes from different time zones!) Sometimes using the MailboxId can help identify the correct message. If the phantom message is the only one in the Inbox, than the ID will be unique for your message. Or you can figure out the MailboxId from the table "mailboxs". You can edit other fields like set the READ column to "1" to mark the message read or set the mailbox ID to that of the trash to keep this phantom header/message but put it in the trash. But best usually to simply delete the record because the actual message is not there anyway; just the database entry.

Hope this helps others as I have been pulling my hair out for a year.