eM Client 9.1.2109.0 crash after upgrade on macOS Monterey 12.5.1

Crashing eM Client
1

Hi,

I’m new to eM Client and have only used version 9.0.1717.0 less than 2 weeks, with no issues.
I was running macOS Monterey 12.5 (Apple M1 Max).

Then, two things happened.

  1. macOS was upgraded to 12.5.1
  2. eM Client prompted an upgrade to 9.1.2109.0

Now eM Client will start and confirms databases are ok. Then the main app starts, and e-mails are synced. If I’m fast, I can read or even forward a message (which works), but then, after a few seconds, the client crashes.

A crash report is then generated. Seems the software has thrown a System.FormatException. The error message has some further info, but I’m not sure how to interpret it all.

I tried to download the previous version of emClient and install that (without doing any deleting or uninstalling), but version seems to be stuck on latest release.

I am reluctant to delete the whole installation, as I would like to preserve the databases / emails in there (I have 7 different concurrent e-mail accounts).

Any thoughts of what to do?

  • Is this an issue introduced with the latest version of the client?
  • Is this an issue because macOS was upgraded to 12.5.1?
  • Is there a way to reset the installation on Mac, but still preserve the setup (I have no backup, and the client crash before I can run the backup).
2

Let me just add one more comment here before leaving. It might be helpful for someone researching e-mail clients later on.

I am coming from the Windows side of things and have recently converted to Mac. I regard myself as a very proficient user (I have been a professional in IT since the 90ies).

On Windows I used Mailbird as my e-mail client, with a paid license. I run multiple businesses and need an e-mail client that handles 7 different e-mails (Google, Microsoft and others in a mix). Mailbird is not available on Mac, even though they are working on this.

After researching a great deal I found that eM Client on Mac seemed to fit my needs perfectly. A large user base, active development over 10 years and very good exporting capabilities. eM Client gives the impression that they are not trying to lock the user to their system, which is a good thing in my book.

I was more than willing to buy the software, once the trail ran out (1 month).

However, after less than 2 weeks trouble set in. Could be upgrading to Monterey 12.5.1, but that is unlikely. More likely the (plain vanilla, standard, built-in) version update process in eM Client itself created issues, either the process itself, or the new software version. This is just speculation on my side, and the real reason does not really matter. What matters is that the software no longer works on a plain vanilla, brand new Mac.

Browsing the forum here points at multiple similar issues during new version upgrades. The solution (at least on Windows) seems to be to delete the installation, and the re-install the software. At least on Windows you can preserve user data as you uninstall, which helps. I can not find any info if this is the case on Mac. Maybe sending eM Client to the trashcan and reinstalling would work on my issue as well. Who knows. I am not going to try it.

Why, you ask?

For any user the e-mail application should just work. This is a work tool, and I would need some minimal confidence in the software itself. This may sound a bit harsh, and it can be influenced by other experiences I have had in my past with new cars that break down after 2 weeks, or new PC´s that break down after 2 weeks. I have learned from experience the hard way that “solving the issue” on a product that breaks down when new is more costly than simply delivering back the product and move on to another vendor.

3

I am also about to switch to Mac and have been using Mailbird on Windows. After about 15 days of testing with eM Client on Windows, I am happy to have discovered this alternative.
So I really hope that your problems are rather an isolated case. Since the test period is still running and the Mac has not been delivered yet, I have some time left until I decide on the right email program.

Is there no backup function in the eM Client under macOS like under Windows OS? Since I can restore an eM Client backup created under Windows on the Mac, the reverse should exist just as well.
If you have TimeMachine enabled, you can use it to restore to the previous state.
I assume that you only use IMAP or Exchange for the email accounts. With that, deleting and reinstalling the eM Client will not lose any emails.

4

The functionality is practically identical between the two.

As long as the Mac eM Client version is the same or newer, you can restore the Windows backup on the Mac. In exactly the same way, as long as the Windows version of eM Client is the same or newer as what was used to make the backup, you can restore a Mac backup on Windows.

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