Q: After ios9 update my emails with attachments won't open and say "message not yet downloaded from server". They were there previously. How do I get them back?

Then this is another bug in ios9.  With previous ios versions, I never had to tap on an email image attachment when "load remote images" was set on.

Try quitting the Mail app like I describe, then reset the iPad. See if the Mail app will then show your email content.

To quit an app double click the Home button to reveal the app switcher. Flick up on the page preview of the app you want to quit. The page preview will fly away and disappear. That quits the app.  Then reset the iPad. Press and hold both the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button continuously until the Apple logo appears. Then release the button and let the device restart. You will not lose data doing this. It's like a computer reboot. Finally start the Mail app.

I Can categorically tell you that this will not resolve the issue. you have accurately described how to quit an app and conduct an iOS reset but this is problem with the iOS 9 code and cannot be resolved by this method.

email accounts set up for Imap will work fine. Pop accounts on iOS 8 will work fine. Pop accounts on iOS 9 will lose content from both the inbox and sent folder. This is pretty random (certainly not related to time since received and doesn't seem to be related to originator) and occurs between 12 and 24 hours after they are downloaded / created irrespective of the download from server setting (I know this because my wife returned home from work today and accused me of talibaning her iPad emails by downloading the emails onto the imac and deleting them from the Server - oh the joys of a domestic arguement is a semi- technical literate household - which I hadn't done).

WHat we really, really need is someone who is a ios9.1 beta tester to tell us if it's been fixed in the latest beta release. And given that el capitan has been released it would also be cool to know if any users brave enough to try it know if they have transferred this issue to OS X!!!!

ANyone have the answers for 9.1 or el capitan? bueller? Anyone?

Thanks for the helpful post.  I concur that none of these suggested fixes will cure the issue.  An engineer has to address that in the architecture of iOS9.  How nice it would be if we could identify an iOS9.1 beta tester. 

Our business network runs a POP mail server and there is no way that I will even consider moving to a new version of the OSX without absolute certainty that the issue has not migrated over from iOS9.

I tried going back to iOS8 and could not.  I erased all data on the phone and intending to do an iCloud restore from a backup that was done when I was still on iOS8.  It seems the cloud retains only the 5 most recent backups so I found my self hung out to dry since only iOS9 backups were available.  So I wound up wiping the phone clean and successfully restoring only to be stuck with iOS9.  My diligence in doing a daily backup of the phone hoisted me on my own petard :-(

Apparently there is no going back...

Quite the mess - and no quick fix in sight?  Sure wish I had waited..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/10/02/apple-ios-9-0-2-risk/

I also confirm, resetting restoring etc will not fix this.  As Will 616 has very succinctly summaried in this and other threads the Mail app has been radically changed in IOS 9.  We must let Apple know.  Fill in the feedback form.

I actually went one step further and did a one pape summary of this problem, complete with screen shot and dropped in to my local Apple Store! I found a helpful team member, who after my explaining it in detail understood it WAS a problem, and said he would scan it and escalate it for me.

I feel quite at sea and disenchanted, as I can no longer manage my email on my iPad the way I have for many years .

asdrubalearrabbiato wrote:

 

If Apple doesn't look at the discussions on the support communities at the Apple own website then it is a very poor sign because they not carefully listen at the users opinion and users problems.

There are thousands of messages a day posted, and 99% of them are of no interest to Apple because the issues are resolved by other users, which is what this forum is for. It would be a real waste of time and energy for Apple to read these messages. Which is why the various other options for bringing an issue to Apple's attention are more effective: Call. Online chat. Visit an Apple store. Use the feedback link.

Rontu2 wrote:

 

I tried going back to iOS8 and could not.  I erased all data on the phone and intending to do an iCloud restore from a backup that was done when I was still on iOS8.  It seems the cloud retains only the 5 most recent backups so I found my self hung out to dry since only iOS9 backups were available.  So I wound up wiping the phone clean and successfully restoring only to be stuck with iOS9.  My diligence in doing a daily backup of the phone hoisted me on my own petard :-(

That isn't reason you cannot go back. iOS is not part of your backup. So even if you had an iOS 8 backup it would not restore iOS 8 to your device. You cannot go back because Apple does not allow any iDevice to go back to a previous version once it is updated.

Appreciate the input as I did not know that about iDevices.  I presumed that I could go back the same as on a laptop if the drive is erased and reformatted to a version of the OS that does not predate the version that was originally on the machine.  Thank you. 

Well, as there doesn't appear to be a fix any time soon, I have returned my iphone 6s to the Apple sop for a refund. Now back to using the old 5s which is still on ios8 - happy days.

Hopefully a fix will happen or a way found and i'll update again.

I got some advise from apple customer care. According to the very polite person, I was told that this was the FIRST time somebody reported to loose his sent mails! Hard to believe, but as I never would believe that somebody is lying to me, the only conclusion is, that Apple customer care is quite "distributed".

The advise was to make a backup of the IPad, delete and recreate my mail-account on the IPad.

Some interesting things I found with the Apple supporter:

When trying to "reproduce" the problem, everything works!

I have sent some mails with attachments to and from an other POP-Mail account and then downloaded the mails to my laptop what deletes the mails from the mail-server. Did this a couple of hours ago and I still can see the mails including attachments in Inbox and sent folders. I read in this thread, that it takes between 12 and 24 hrs for the mails to disappear. So I have to wait to verify.

My actual IOS is 9.0.2. The update did not recover the "not yet downloaded" ones.

Had the same problem.  Installed version 9.0.2 this morning and so far it seems that this problem has been solved.  Attachments lost prior to this version are gone forever however.  Only time will tell but so far documents that were sent this morning and are in my "Sent" folder still have the attachments intact.  It's worth a try if you haven't updated your firmware.

I too did the iOS9.0.2 update but found there was no change.  The Inbox and Sent messages will remain but only for 24 hours.  Then they'll be history and you'll see only the 'message not downloaded' dialogue.  Please use the feedback link as that's the quickest way to get this in front of some eyes that can address it.  This piece in Forbes has more on the 9.0.2 issues.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/10/02/apple-ios-9-0-2-risk/

I posted it on Twitter.  If you use Facebook please post it there.  The more people that know about the issues the sooner they will get attention.

It appears everything works when trying to reproduce the issue because it takes typically 24 hours for the attached files to disappear. Rest assured that will happen. This is an issue in the 9.0.2 code that requires Apple's engineers to cure.

Please use the feedback link and urge others to do likewise.

Yes, I can confirm! After just 2 hours, same problem. My test-mails disappeared again! I will continue to bother Apple Support with this issue.