i usually get this issue every now and then. there is a solution that worked fine for me.. 1) start the terminal window 2) run the command : ps | grep 'modest' note down the process number for the first row returned by the above command 3) run the command : kill <process number found above> after this if you run the second step again u can see that modest has already restarted with a new process number.. now try starting the email app.. it shud work fine..