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?

Use the feedback link.

I am with Plusnet (Imap) and  encountered the "error" message after downloading ios9 yesterday. I normally wait for updates to settle down but didn't wait this time as the The Telegraph required IoS9 to run its new newspaper format.

My laptop with good old Microsoft appears to be functioning ok.

I think I'm gonna sleep on this and hope Apple fix it pdq.

cheers

Level 6 and above have direct access to forum hosts. They assure us that Apple employees do not generally read the forums. But I'm happy to defer to your knowledge.

LdyGatr wrote:

 

No, unfortunately when I woke up this morning the emails started disappearing again. So now I'm forced to set all of my devices to never delete from the server unless/until I delete from the device and I'll have to manually delete from the server as well as downloading to each device.

All,

Sorry to dash your hopes but very early in in this iOS 9 pop issue I deleted one of my accounts, went to the BT (uk email provider) and setup the account from scratch using the incorrect password trick to allow the selection of pop vice imap. You will not be surprised to learn that after 24 hours emails started to be replaced by the dreaded "cannot download" message.

Several of you have found ldygatr's post suggesting a fix - on one thread I asked how how it had gone after a day or so and her response is posted above. No fix, same as me. Those of you going down the route of deleting and re-setting up I would ask you to 1. Ensure you have set as pop not imap before posting it as a successful solution and 2. You wait 24 hours before posting it as a success. It's bad enough already without us spoofing each other into chicken bones/ ritual sacrifice solutions that sometimes do more damage than good. We need to be precise with our feedback and produce evidence based responses to Apple to aid / speed the solution.

I've been fighting with this problem since it started.  My wife, who was in Europe and did NOT upgrade to ios 9 until she returned, said that she was starting to lose email content BEFORE the upgrade.

A long conversation today with Apple senior support blamed the whole thing on my IP provider, Road Runner.  I then spoke with RR  level 3 and they said that my pop-server was configured correctly and it was Apple's fault.  It is possible that the IOS9 upgraded did a default search for my email accounts and set up everything as IMAP, but RR said that the settings would then have changed.   In other words, there is no way that my particular settings (especially the port) would access the IMAP server.

A few things are clear.  If you delete and restore a RR account, it will default to IMAP and not give the opportunity to change it to POP.  If you set up a new account, you have the POP alternative.  You can use the garbage input discussed above to set up a new POP account and then put in the old account data  after the new account is rejected, but that deletes all the place holders.  I do not believe this will stop the content deletions; I'll know more tomorrow.

Content deletions are entirely random both as to time, size and what is deleted.  I've reported this bug to Apple on a daily basis but have not received a response.

I have and called tech support 3 times and spoken to AppleCare - that's how I got the email

from them

same here, seems that they will open on day one or 2 but after a few days all are blank with no option to 'download from server', and forwarding (which used to work), although you do get the option to 'download from the server' during this action doesn't actually do it.

this is a major fail as has already been pointed out - very bad for travellers especially

The hosts are moderators. They don't read the forum either, unless a user at level 3 or above "reports" a post. A moderator will then look at it and decide if it needs to be edited or deleted.

I'm going to be traveling this week and away from my main host machine, so this email issue is about to go from a significant inconvenience - to a major business continuity problem (at least for me personally).  New emails I received this morning on my iphone POP account are already lost, just hours later.

I don's want to provide any misinformation so please take this with a big caveat that my results may be related to my lack of experience... The only thing I noticed though all this time since the POP email bug first broke, is that emails that I had 'flagged' for follow up on my phone before upgrading to iOS 9 - are still fully intact - text and attachments (even after rebuilding my POP account).  I'm not really an experienced user at all, so this is totally guesswork - but I was wondering if flagged messages get stored / handled differently for retrieval...(e.g. they are retained on the phone, like all POP messages are 'supposed' to be)?   I am going to try flagging new incoming POP emails while traveling this week to see if that stores them differently so that perhaps I can still access and get work done that way.  Emails I flagged on october 2nd are still intact and accessible in my flagged folder on phone.  Some Emails I received this morning in my POP account (just before noon) are already gone with the 'not been downloaded from server' header.  I'm not sure if flagging POP emails stores them differently, so it might just be random or a fluke.  But wanted to mention in the event there is a kernel of info here that might be helpful to other users as an emergency bail-out approach to try.

Not sure if we will see another patch anytime soon so yikes, this is going to be difficult when traveling and my phone is my primary way of doing business.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and support on this issue.

Set your iPad to only delete from the server if you delete on the iPad. Set all other devices to never delete from the server.

Please note, I'm not sure if flagging a message causes it to be stored any differently / not be lost.  But I will experiment with it this week and report any updates.  It has worked for me today, but I don't want to provide untested / incorrect information.

Greetings,

I have a POP account.

I fetch my email, not push.

Server is set to never delete.

Upgraded to new IOS 9.0.1

Spoke to Apple tech and no help.

Most large emails after 24 hours state: Not downloaded from server.

I have read those large emails, but iPhone 6s will not save them.

So far, my solution has been to read the emails and then mark them as Unread.  So far, 12 hours and counting, they have remained intact.

I will post an update after 24+ hours.

Hi AndroidEnvy

Good luck - I really feel for you having to travel, with your previously rock solid POP email system now apparently broken .  

Interesting info about flagging (or marking unread, thanks Former USMC) a message may "save" it from being stripped of content ... a straw I can clutch at that maybe Apple CAN fix our beloved ailing POP?!    At least promising that in IOS9 the Mail app does still retain the ability to "keep" messages.

I have an appointment at the Genius Bar tomorrow.  I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but I expect I will have to tell them that, "no its not my ISP", "no deleting and recreating the account doesn't make any difference" ....

I wonder would it breach anyone's privacy (or any Apple policy) if we share ticket numbers we are given by Apple for our POP problem? That way when others make contact with Apple, the technician can at go directly to other reported instances?  Just a thought.

Me too.

Confirmation attachments in emails, both flights and hotel for this past weekend, which were stored on my iCloud email acct., would not open. I needed to check in 24 hours in advance for my return flight. As a result, I had to wait until until I got to my hotel to use my laptop. By that time, I couldn't get a seating assignment anymore. I had to wait until I got to the airport and just pray I didn't get bumped off my flight home.

schoodle wrote:

 

Me too.

Confirmation attachments in emails, both flights and hotel for this past weekend, which were stored on my iCloud email acct., would not open. I needed to check in 24 hours in advance for my return flight. As a result, I had to wait until until I got to my hotel to use my laptop. By that time, I couldn't get a seating assignment anymore. I had to wait until I got to the airport and just pray I didn't get bumped off my flight home.

Your problem is unrelated. iCloud accounts are by definition not POP accounts, and the other users in this thread all use POP accounts.