do not receive emails. stops and starts
emails are not received consistently and many are missing.
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?
Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.
If you have no POP accounts & they’re all IMAP accounts then in Mail’s Mailbox menu choose Rebuild.