My thread to rant about the !^%@$^! EMAIL program [Archive]

View Full Version : My thread to rant about the !^%@$^! EMAIL program

JoeT

01-09-2008, 11:22 PM

OK, if there was a reason to return the iPhone and go back to my Treo, the mail application is IT.

Now, I get emails where the first two preview lines appear but then the email itself has "not been downloaded from the server" when you click on it. I've had emails where the email has the "not been downloaded from the server" in the preview but the message was there. Today, however, takes the cake.

I'm out and about when I get an email. I pop it open, read it. Hey, I wanna chat with a buddy about it. So I call him, go to open it back up and IT HASN'T BEEN DOWNLOADED FROM THE &^@&%&*! SERVER!!!!!

Oh, and by the way, the Geniuses at the Apple store have no idea and are blaming the mail server. Apple Care was useless as well.

The Treo -- even with the much maligned Versamail application -- never did this to me. If it could download the mail, the mail was THERE. Period.

I will be VERY happy if this buggy piece of Software Having Intermittent Trouble gets fixed in an update or the SDK permits someone to write a REAL application. This is slowly making me insane.

However, on the other hand, if I return the iPhone, I won't have to replace the headset that my kid chewed up.

Thanks for letting me vent. I feel much better now. Time to go download my mail ON MY PC. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Montalicious

01-09-2008, 11:42 PM

I've never had this problem... I've never heard of this trouble either. Do you have this problem on edge and wifi also?

IphoneTony

01-10-2008, 01:07 AM

this happened to me the first few weeks I had my I phone. I have not seen this for a few months now.

joe

01-10-2008, 03:01 AM

I've seen this only occasionally and only when in a poor signal area. If it happens with good signal even after restarting the iPhone or when on WiFi then you might want to check your Mail settings.

JoeT

01-10-2008, 04:21 AM

It happens with both, but I notice it more with Edge since if I'm in Wifi coverage, 90% of the time that means I am home.

What's nuts is that IT DOWNLOADED THE MESSAGE. I was READING it. Then it decided that it hadn't been downloaded.. ARRGH!

jjvaldez

01-10-2008, 06:31 AM

thls happens to me often with large pics being emailed to me, i just reset the phone and that works most of the time

OJsakila

01-10-2008, 11:58 AM

thls happens to me often with large pics being emailed to me, i just reset the phone and that works most of the time

I totally agree. Most people forget this is like a little computer..... You MUST reboot every now and again.

If you had owned an IPAQ, you would never forget to reboot again......

GailLA

01-10-2008, 12:27 PM

I totally agree. Most people forget this is like a little computer..... You MUST reboot every now and again.

If you had owned an IPAQ, you would never forget to reboot again......

Ain't that the truth. I have a Palm T|X and I have that reset every night using an option in the 3rd party back-up program I use because the Web browser sucks and is more likely to hang if you don't do that.

With the iPhone I've gone days without rebooting. Sometimes the "errors" are so subtle that you don't realize that a reboot could fix them. Thanks for the reminder, OJ and JJ, too.

tiguy99

01-10-2008, 01:06 PM

Ain't that the truth. I have a Palm T|X and I have that reset every night using an option in the 3rd party back-up program I use because the Web browser sucks and is more likely to hang if you don't do that.

With the iPhone I've gone days without rebooting. Sometimes the "errors" are so subtle that you don't realize that a reboot could fix them. Thanks for the reminder, OJ and JJ, too.

Thanks guys! You just reminded me to reboot lol

JoeT

01-10-2008, 01:17 PM

A reboot didn't help... :(

KNK

01-10-2008, 01:22 PM

A reboot didn't help... :(

Your problem is solved. Get the new Samsung phone from Sprint.:gasp:

JoeT

01-10-2008, 01:39 PM

Sounds like a plan... LOL.. Of course, I just got my ETF taken off my last Sprint bill, they would probably use me in a Sprint commercial if I went back.

"Joe is a Sprint customer and former iPhone user, not an actor. So we hired Simon from American Idol to help tell his story.."

KNK

01-10-2008, 01:43 PM

JoeT

01-10-2008, 02:15 PM

KNK

01-10-2008, 02:21 PM

But I don't smoke...

Oh.. Phillip Morris.. Right. (nods)

Trust me, if there's one place I'm not likely to be, it's on a stage or screen - not unless they start looking for a replacement for Steve Buscemi (http://imdb.com/name/nm0000114/)...

What made him famous was that closeup shot of his corn teeth on his left side in the movie ConAir....thats a fact

JoeT

01-10-2008, 02:23 PM

Hey, I might have a shot then! :)

JoeT

01-10-2008, 02:24 PM

...But I won't have working email. <pounds head on desk>

KNK

01-10-2008, 02:28 PM

...But I won't have working email. <pounds head on desk>

Then you need HondaMaker's avatar with the blood flying everywhere.

JoeT

01-10-2008, 02:30 PM

Ya know, I think I will call and harass Apple Care just 'cause I can.

philhh

01-10-2008, 03:40 PM

I too miss the simple but very efficient mail of the Treo. I was using a program called Chatter on the Treo that provided inexpensive ($20/year) IMAP-IDLE push email through a variety of services. I'm sad such a situation doesn't yet exist for the iPhone but think it will come eventually.

I have had similar issues with sending and receiving email. For me, the solution thus far has been the one I describe in this post:

http://www.everythingicafe.com/forum/iphone-software/plz-help-w-email-19313.html#post169294

Basically backing up and doing a complete restore. While restarting my iPhone would solve the problem, it did so only for the first time I accessed the Mail app. Subsequent uses would yield failed send and receive issues. Since restoring (I have 1.1.2 with no mods) I have had no problems thus far.

I hope this helps! :smile:

-Phil

JoeT

01-10-2008, 03:48 PM

Thanks. Apple Care was useless, I'll spare you the agony of the details, but suffice it to say that I thought we would be spending the afternoon with me explaining how the POP protocol works.

I'm trying IMAP to see if that helps. At the moment my theories are either:

1. Borked message store on the iPhone

2. Borked email app

I'm loathe to restore the iPhone since it's only 3 freakin' weeks old and I'm not sure what I'll have to manually re-enter.

I hear you about Chatter. I was one of Mark's beta testers back when it was an IM-only application. :)

macgirl

01-10-2008, 03:55 PM

I'm trying IMAP to see if that helps. At the moment my theories are either:

i was about to ask you if you were using IMAP or POP mail. before gmail was switched to IMAP, i used to have the "this message has not been downloaded from the server" issue all the time (and even experienced what you did with a message switching to show that error message *after* i'd started to read it). once i was able to switch it to IMAP, this has not happened once. i'd be willing to bet that this will fix your problem, and hope it does!

joe

01-11-2008, 01:48 AM

i was about to ask you if you were using IMAP or POP mail. before gmail was switched to IMAP, i used to have the "this message has not been downloaded from the server" issue all the time (and even experienced what you did with a message switching to show that error message *after* i'd started to read it). once i was able to switch it to IMAP, this has not happened once. i'd be willing to bet that this will fix your problem, and hope it does!

Really good point! I use IMAP exclusively so that my iPhone mail is a mirror of the mail on my MacBook. Really cool when you hook up Drafts and start typing a message on the MacBook then finish it on the iPhone. :smile:

JoeT

01-11-2008, 01:56 PM

OK, so while IMAP is working better to GET mail, today, for no apparent reason, the iPhone decided that despite being configured for secure (SSL) SMTP on port 587, it knew more than me and should try it on port 25. Needless to say, the mail server was having none of it, and so today I can't send mail. Oh yes, I've reconfigured the outgoing mail settings. I've rebooted, I've exited the mail app with the "home button for 6 seconds" trick - nada. I'm tcpdumping on the mail server and it's going to port 25 no matter what.

Can I say it? THIS MAIL APP BLOWS. And I am getting mad both at the phone and at the cheeseball AppleCare reps I get who keep blaming the server (which is Linux and which is working FINE with my WINDOWS PC...).

And that was my rant for the day.

Tinman

01-11-2008, 02:59 PM

My problem with the mail app is that it treats email like it was a Web page. "Getting short on storage space? No problem, we'll clear out the mail cache! Those pesky iPhone users won't complain if it has to be downloaded again. Sure hope it's still on the server! lol"

But seriously, I don't think I should have to re-download an email message that I've already downloaded, unless it was pushed out due too being to old (replaced with newer mail).

I also don't like that the mail app, even when using POP3, constantly wants to check mail while I'm in it--and I have auto-check turned off. I can't even read existing mail on a plane--in Airplane mode--because the mail app keeps wanting to hit the server.

I would like more options:
1.) If I have auto-check turned off (in Settings->Mail) have an option to not get (POP3) mail till I hit the send-receive button. I might even want it for IMAP, assuming I can also get the app to save existing mail properly (e.g., to read when in Airplane mode).

2.) Allow me to choose between downloading just headers, the headers and the first few lines of mail messages, or the complete mail messages. Sometimes I check mail while in a WiFi area, thinking I have all my messages, only to find out I really don't and then have to wait to actually read most messages as they need to be downloaded first (which is often on EDGE).

3.) In addition to the option in #2, above, I would further like to specify whether or not to download images. Then, if I like, I can download the images while reading the message (or choose not to).

4.) An option to keep messages, assuming they haven't rolled off due to age, so that if I need to read one again it doesn't have to be re-downloaded.

All of that said you couldn't pay me to go back to VersaMail on my Treo. Even though it didn't have the same problems I believe the iPhone's mail app has, it had one show-stopper (for me): it would crash the Treo (one time, a hard-reset). Once that happened there was a good chance that I couldn't do anything in VersaMail without rebootings. So I had to have a fresh, uncorrupted, backup of VersaMail with me at all times. I then would use Rescoe Backup to restore, and hopefully get my mail back again. OTOH, I did have other choices for mail apps on the Treo, most of them more robust, and hopefully more stable, than VersaMail.

--
Mike

JoeT

01-11-2008, 06:45 PM

Well, as it turns out, the iPhone decided on it's own to enable SMTP authentication. Since I don't have that enabled on the server.... It wouldn't work.

That's bad enough, but once you have it enabled, apparently you cannot ever disable authentication again. I wound up having to remove and re-add the account.

Quite frankly, after years of a "holier than thou" attitude and those Mac vs. PC ads, I'm not terribly impressed with Apple. If Versamail was buggy, the iPhone application just has contempt for you. And you can extend that to the whole of the iPhone itself, in many respects.

You know what? I just decided something. In the next update, I don't want paginating home pages full of Safari bookmarks or location-aware Google maps, or any of the other rumored features - I just want Apple to respect the fact that some people like to have a little control over their phone/computer/system. I'm all for hiding advanced options that when misconfigured could cause things to stop working and raise support costs from those who can't handle them, but sheesh, let the power users do what they need to do! But since Jobs is evidently quite the control freak, I suppose it won't happen anytime soon.

Y'all sick of my ranting yet? I know that I'm pretty tired of it.

golfo

01-11-2008, 09:18 PM

I see the same message "Message has not been downloaded from server"

However this is only after I have read the message on my computer.

When I receive an email on iphone I open it and read ( everything fine), but when I get back to computer and read mail agian, I am unable to view email on iphone, although it does display the first few lines from the inbox, but when i open the message it will not display.

I would of thought the message would store on iphone when it has been opened here first. Or does it just read from the server evrytime, and once download message from server to computer, it is no longer able to read it ?

joe

01-12-2008, 03:38 AM

While I don't disagree that iPhone Mail could see some improvements where connecting to servers is concerned, it seems there is something just not liking your mail server. I had a similar issue with Leopard Mail that didn't exist with Tiger. I finally got my mail server guys to tweak a setting and now everything is happy. So it may work fine with one mail app and not another and not necessarily be completely iPhone Mail's fault.