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imap synchronization on read/unread flag stopped with iOS 4.1, then 4.2

I use dreamhost imap on my mac and on my iphone. Until around the 4.1 timeframe there were no issues but around 4.1 on the iphone I noticed messages that I read on my mac are still marked as unread on my iPhone. I currently have something like 62 (out of 200 visible) unread messages on my iPhone. It's not predictable as far as I can tell which messages are unread. It's just a percentage of them.

Meanwhile my iPad had zero trouble.

Until the 4.2 update on the iPad. Now the iPad is exhibiting the exact same behavior as my iPhone, neither of which had trouble until the 4.1 timeframe.

gmail in imap mode works fine. However, clearly this is something that changed in the iphone software.

Anybody else seen this problem or have a fix/workaround? I've tried deleting my account and starting over. That works initially but quickly goes back.

BTW, it's happening to me and my wife and my friends also on dreamhost.

Macbook 2.4Ghz, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Nov 28, 2010 7:29 AM

49 replies

Dec 13, 2010 8:20 AM in response to Lluis M

This did not work for me.

Plus it doesn't make sense. If you can make a network connection to download the mail, you can use the same network connection to change/update the statuses.

The one thing I will try is deleting my account on my mac and on my phone and then starting over on my mac and then see if it starts working then.

Lluis M

Level 1

5 points

Dec 13, 2010 9:49 AM in response to Jonathan Payne1

Don't know too if it make sence or not, I think the same, but it works for me, if I turn SSL on 993 port, it stop working (marking read messages on sync), if i turn off SSL and make it uses 143 port it works fine... weird, isn't it?

Dec 13, 2010 5:52 PM in response to Lluis M

Lluis M's suggestion (changing SSL to off and to port 143) does not fix the problem for me.

Dec 16, 2010 5:32 PM in response to Jonathan Payne1

I am having the same issue which started when I updated my iPhone 3G from 3.x to 4.2. I use dreamhost IMAP for six addresses and have messages read on my laptop via Apple Mail show up as unread on my iPhone in all accounts, which can make it very hard to follow threads. I might try deleting all accounts on the phone and then synching and tell iTunes to overwrite all mail account Info on the phone. Aggravating!

Dec 17, 2010 2:35 AM in response to Lluis M

@Lluis M, I think there may be something to your suggestions. I am not sure yet, but I think my problem is slowly going away. As I get more messages in my inbox and old ones fall off the list, I don't think I have had any issues with recent messages.

I am going to try this with my other dreamhost account and see if it starts to sort out that problem as well. And if it does, I will come back here and mark this issue as solved.

For the record, what I think I did was this: I went to mail settings and changed my account from SSL to normal. I did a few things, messages didn't fix themselves though. However, then I changed it back to SSL mode again. Still the messages that were unread but shouldn't have been did not fix themselves. BUT, no new messages have had any trouble since then as far as I can tell.

We'll see. I've lost all confidence in tracking this down properly...

Jan 6, 2011 8:52 AM in response to Jonathan Payne1

i was having this same issue, and I think I've solved it. I tried a delete and resetup of the account, and that didn't help.

Dreamhost's instructions for setting up IMAP in Snow Leopard's Mail.app indicate that for the incoming Mail settings, SSL should be turned off, and the port set to 143.

I changed both my iPad and iPhone to this and it appears to be functioning correctly now. again, as you mentioned above, it only fixes it for new messages. hope this solves it for you as well.

Jan 10, 2011 8:42 AM in response to Paul Andrew Skidmore

I wish this worked for me - the problem seems improved, as some messages read/deleted on a computer do synchronize as read/deleted on my iPhone, but a large number still do not. Very frustrating.

Basseq

Level 1

4 points

Feb 15, 2011 9:29 PM in response to Albert Fischer

DreamHost claims this is solely an iOS bug. While there may be some problem with iOS, IMAP statuses work on other (non-DH) accounts, so there's something complicated, non-standard, or esoteric about DH's setup. I'm not sure what it is, but it's probably a combination of certificate and DNS settings. This is not to say the DH is in the wrong, merely that I think they could do more than point at Apple.

Anyway, a combination of the following may work for you.

1. Connect to mail.dreamhost.com on port 143, no SSH.
2. Connect to server.mail.dreamhost.com, where "server" is the name of your server (which you can look up) on port 993 with SSH enabled.

You'll notice a couple things:

1. The mail.yourdomain.com URL doesn't seem to ever work on status sync. Hence my assertion that there's something up with DNS, either with DH or iOS. (Default DNS settings; anyone tried custom?)

2. SSH on mail.dreamhost.com doesn't fix on the issue, either.

3. SSH on *.dreamhost.com always throws what seems to be a certificate mismatch error, despite DH's claims to the contrary. Something's up without their certs. Haven't looked into it, but it doesn't matter.

4. Why can you get mail, but not message status? Someone who understands IMAP will have to answer that one.

Anyway, both options are working for me on iPhone and iPad. Hope this helps you, too.

Feb 24, 2011 2:07 AM in response to Basseq

So we basically have to choose between having a working email client and having the security of not sending passwords in the clear (ssl turned off)?

I am so mind-numbingly frustrated with this issue.

This is an iOS bug triggered by something that is different about dreamhost. It's clear it's an iOS issue because it started happening to us as soon as we upgraded to 4.x.

I need to find a way to get Apple's attention.

Feb 24, 2011 1:11 PM in response to Basseq

Option 1 doesn't fix the problem for me, and I can't get #2 to work. I entered homiemail-sub5.mail.dreamhost.com but it doesn't connect to that server. I've got a message into Dreamhost support so we'll see how that goes.

Feb 24, 2011 1:59 PM in response to John Young1

Actually, what I ended up doing today is switching the port to 143 ... and leaving SSL on. I wasn't expecting that to work at all, but it is working. Strangely enough (but it's probably because I am looking hard) it seems to be doing better now.

But I will know the truth in a few days.

So in summary, I used to have port 993 (or whatever) with SSL and now I have port 143 with SSL. I cannot see how this matters ... When I mark a message as read or unread manually on the iphone, I can see activity on my mac mail activity window immediately. On the phone I have to press refresh in order for it to see read/unread changes I have made on the server.

Anyway, I think this is still likely an issue and I hope you make some headway with dreamhost, who might be able to get Apple to explain what is wrong or fix it on their end.

Feb 28, 2011 7:06 PM in response to Jonathan Payne1

I went ahead and changed the port to 143 and that seems to have fixed it, although I have a second Dreamhost IMAP account on my iPhone that is still on 993 and is working fine. Go figure. Dreamhost logged into my account with an iPhone and tested it and said it was working, which it now is, so I guess that's that. Until it stops working!

Mar 1, 2011 3:24 AM in response to John Young1

Seems to work for a while but fairly quickly it's off in lala land again.

Basseq

Level 1

4 points

Mar 3, 2011 4:43 PM in response to Jonathan Payne1

Back to lala for me, too.

Here's a reply from DH:

Your case has been looked into and the conclusion is that the problem is
caused by the client not syncing with the mail server to update the flags
that were added in another IMAP client. Changing to the generic mail
server name may have worked because it forced the sync with the server,
however, it shouldn't make a difference in the flag updates. Our mail
admin also set up your account on his evo, and it sync'd right away as
that's how the android client works. Please also note, our mail servers
use dovecot, which could explain why other providers' IMAP clients were
better at picking up the flags.

I'm technical, but not technical enough to sort through the intricacies of IMAP server installs. All I know is that IMAP services work flawlessly everywhere but DH. (Including, notably, the research I've done on dovecot and iOS bugs: none.) Which points to DH as a culpable party, in my mind. I guess everyone over there is using Android.

It's infuriating, especially as a new customer. If the next version doesn't fix the problem, I've got to find another hosting provider.

Mar 4, 2011 7:42 PM in response to Basseq

Yes, mine's broken again. Strangely though, it's just one of my DH accounts. In my case, the DH support person set up the account on his iPhone 3GS. Of course he only checked one test message and it worked fine... I guess I'll wait for 4.3 and see if it fixes the problem and then deal with it if not.

imap synchronization on read/unread flag stopped with iOS 4.1, then 4.2