[egghead]

This happens to me whenever I first set up my email. It will download up to the number of days I set, but then it will check all of the headers without downloading.

Once in a blue moon, I won't get any emails for a whole day and it will just say "connecting" or "disconnecting" when I choose send/receive. When it finally starts working again for whatever reason, it goes through all the emails again as if I just set it up.

The trick I use to speed this up when I first set up my email is to connect it to my computer so that it is using my computer's internet connection. It significantly speeds up the amount of time it takes to download my messages and check all the headers.

Based on your description, this doesn't seem to be the same case as yours, but if you were mistaken, this might help.