Checking for mail is an endless spinning wheel

I agree totally. I'm tempted to go to the ATT store, deactivate my iPhone, put it on craigslist, and buy a Blackberry. If / when Apple gets their act together, I'll re-upgrade to a new iPhone (by then probably a 32GB).

But what I've been going in the meantime (which is far from ideal) is opening a Gmail account, then linking all my POP accounts to the Gmail account. I then check my mail via my Gmail account on the web rather than through the mail program itself. The disadvantage, aside from being forced to use a web app, is that all outgoing mail will be tagged as from "yourname@gmail.com" rather than from the account that mail was originally sent to. Also, in my experience, I've found that it could take as much as 10-15 minutes for an email sent to one of my "regular" email addresses to show up in my Gmail account

The problem has been going on since the 2.0 update on the release of the 3G iPhone.

Although I've had similar issues, I've not had any since the 2.0.2 update.

The only trouble I've seen is when the screen is off (say in your pocket) it can't use wireless and relies on GPRS/EDGE so if you don't get signal it can bugger up the mail checking. Although mail does come flooding in when I manually check and then it seems OK after that.

Most of these issues might be due to incorrect setup of the mail accounts. Make sure proper ports/pop/smtp are entered. Check if you need SSL or not. And if you are connected to a network, check to see if these ports are not blocked by your firewalls. I have 2 yahoo accounts, gmail, and Microsoft exchange setup on my iPhone, and they all work fine. Yahoo and Exchange are both push mail servers so I just get my emails automatically. Gmail is fetch, you can either set this to check manually or by time.

That would not explain why most of us with the problem get emails after hard resets (if we are lucky!) but then not again later. CONNECTING.....

The fact that the email connections work %1 of the time, seem to show that the connection is there to be made and something else is failing beyond user setup.

I'm having the same problem and it is most definitely NOT a mis-configured email setting. It's also NOT an AT&T data outage. Here's how I know:

I just broke the glass on my original 8GB iPhone from June 2007 (it still hurts). So I go out and upgrade to the new 3G model. I get it up and running and everything is pretty well (just don't get me started on color temperature). Then I find the same +"endless connecting"+ issue with my email. Rebooting the phone does manage to get a connection and receive email, but that goes away in ten minutes or less. Holding down the Home key, ditto. If I write an email and try to send it out it just disappears entirely - no drafts folder, nothing in the Outbox or Sent folders. My iPhone accesses my 2 Gmail accounts, my Verizon account, my Comcast account, and 2 other pop accounts. None get past the "connecting" stage when this happens. None receive or can send email.

At the same time, I can jump on Safari and go to any web page I want. Stocks, weather, Maps, all have their connection. No hesitation, 3G speed does feel faster. All of this is the same whether on a WiFi or on 3G.

Now here's the thing - my original, first generation iPhone still works like a breeze. It's not active as a cell phone, but it's fully functional as an iPod Touch. On a WiFI it gets all my email, from all my addresses. I can send and receive, it can surf Safari and everything. It's been updated to v. 2.0.2, so it's running the same version of iPhone software as the 3G version. All the email that my 3G can't quite connect to, my original iPhone is getting all the time. (And no, it's not removing it from the server so it's not there for my 3G, and some of my addresses are IMAP.)

So, you know, I'm just stumped. We OBVIOUSLY need an update pronto.

To troubleshoot your issue, try one email at a time. Most likely one of the email accounts is causing the endless loop. When satisfied that its not causing the issue, add one and then repeat the procedure. I have a few friends with iPhones and we don't get these issues with emails. I have 2 yahoo accounts, 1 gmail and one MS Exchange and they are all flawless.

I have been getting these spinning wheels constantly. They seem to be cause by going from one cell site to another (or out of range). Often things are restored by killing the mail.app, but sometimes full power off is required. Problem does not occur when iPhone is left in one location. I have one me.com address (set to push) and one IMAP account (set to fetch).

I have the same problem with my iPhone 3G endlessly trying to connect and I just wanted to add that I'm in Italy and using it with an Italian operator, so I can confirm it's not an ATT connection problem. As soon as I switch the phone on I'm able to receive mail flawlessly on 4 different accounts but then during the day I mostly get the "connecting" problem, and it doesn't matter whether I'm on 3G, Edge or Wifi. After rebooting, my mail downloads quickly and flawless again on any connection but then freezes up again sometime later.
I also have the same "disappearing" email problem, in the sense that if the iPhone is "connecting" and doesn't manage to connect, any email I've been trying to send just disappears and doesn't get put in Drafts or Outbox or anywhere else, it just gets lost and I have to retype it.
Safari, however, always works perfectly.
I'm really looking forward to Apple fixing this most annoying bug!

Here is an article from the apple support website that might help out.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2032

I've got the same problem. Closing the app does get it going again. Pretty annoying hopefully. Let's hope it gets fixed.

Hi
I have been having the same problem as the rest of you. I really rely on my emails and unfortunately I think I will be going back to a blackberry:(
Sorry apple I tried

Nope. Same issue 😟

I'm not sure that's the issue. This problem has been going on since long before September 2nd.

CORRECTION: I got my original iPhone back out and it's actually only running version 2.0 - not 2.0.2
So i guess 2.0.2 is the whole problem 🙂