Frequently I find that some emails stay at the top of my Inbox in Yahoo mail while more recent emails slot in below. Does this indicate a simple benign mistake in the “clock” of the sender or is there something more sinister about this situation (such as viruses or spyware)?

From your description of the problem I assume you mean that some emails get stuck at the top of your Inbox and messages which are time-stamped within Yahoo mail as being more recent than these messages are placed below these older messages. In this situation, there is nothing wrong with the sender’s clock as Yahoo mail has recognised that those messages are most recent (due to the date/time stamp on the message) and, despite this information, still places those more recent messages below the older messages. To start, make sure that you are sorting the messages by date and time received. This can usually be done by clicking on the Date column heading. Should this not resolve the problem, we next need to determine whether the problem is related to the specific web browser you are using. If you are accessing Yahoo mail through Internet Explorer try a different web browser such as Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox). Conversely, if you are current using a third-party web browser then try Internet Explorer. If the problem does not occur in the other web browser we have discovered the root cause of the issue.

Should a particular web browser be causing the problem our first task is to clear the cache within the browser in case something has become corrupted. If you need to clear the Internet Explorer cache open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options” and click the “General” tab. Under the “Browsing history” heading, click the “Delete” button. The Delete Browsing History window will appear. At the bottom of the window click the “Delete all” button. Tick the box “Also delete files and settings stored by add-ons” and click “Yes”. Once this has completed restart Internet Explorer to see whether the problem persists. If you need to clear the cache in Firefox you follow a similar procedure. Open Firefox and go to the “Tools” menu > “Clear Private Data”. In the Clear Private Data window which appears tick all the boxes and click “Clear Private Data Now”. Then, restart Firefox and check whether the problem persists. If you use a different browser and experience the problem (e.g. Opera, Google Chrome) then you should be able to find the cache clearing function within the options or preferences for the program.

Should you find that clearing the cache in the browser does not resolve the problem, the next possible cause is some third-party add-on (such as a toolbar) conflicting with Yahoo mail. You should try disabling all third-party add-ons to see whether this resolves the problem. This can be done in Internet Explorer through the “Tools” menu > “Manage Add-ons” > “Enable or Disable Add-ons”. Similarly, in Firefox add-ons can be disabled through the “Tools” menu > “Add-ons”.

If none of the add-ons are causing the problem, you should check whether the problem exists on another computer running the same web browser. It is possible, albeit unlikely, that there is an incompatibility between Yahoo mail and the web browser which you are using. I say unlikely because if this was a widespread problem then surely a lot of other users would also be complaining, but I was not able to find any references to this particular problem when searching online.

Should you reach this point and not have a resolution you may need to either suffer with this small problem or use a different web browser for Yahoo mail. I have encountered the same issue when accessing my Outlook Web Access work email, as OWA works well in Internet Explorer (given it is a Microsoft product) but has a “light” version (Outlook Web Access Light) when used in other web browsers, such as Firefox (which is my primary web browser), that is not as feature-rich or easy to use as the full version. As such, I use Internet Explorer to access Outlook Web Access and then Firefox for all my other web needs. While this is not a perfect resolution it does get around the issue.