Help! Mail keeps crashing.

[Stoy]

The last two days iChat was not connecting properly, so yesterday I decided to just dump it and reload it. Long story short I can't figure out how to download regular iChat. All I can find is iChat AV which I do not want to pay for now. And I hate AIM because of all the ads.

Anyway, after I junked iChat, Mail crashes when ever I try to compose or reply to a message. Big problem. I cannot communicate via IM or email!
Does anyone know why Mail would have this problem and more importantly, how can I fix it?

Please, help!

Thanks

 

[Stoy]

As follow up, I have trashed the Mail .plist file (which I should have done with iChat in the first place) and that didn't fix the problem.

Still looking for advice.

Thanks