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iPad Mail isn't downloading and can't reset via Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Hi --

The mail on my iPad stopped downloading about a week ago. I have try soft and hard resets, as well as restoring from a backup via iTunes.

More critically, I am unable to delete these mail accounts. When I go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar, the settings app hangs: the Mail / Contacts / Settings pane does not come up, and the app is frozen. I have to kill it by double-pressing the main iPad button to bring up the apps bar at that bottom, and then explicitly close the crashed settings app.

Any suggestions on how to delete those accounts, either by restoring functionality to the Settings app or somehow hacking into the iPad to delete the settings?

Thanks,

Ramon

iPad, iOS 4

Posted on Dec 21, 2010 2:09 PM

Reply
23 replies

Dec 23, 2010 2:44 AM in response to felciano

1st hard reset your ipad-hold the the sleep/wake button for about 10-15 seconds until the apple appears, let the device restart, go into settings and see if delete account is available then. If not then providing you have sycned/backed it up in itunes, go to settings> reset> erase all content and settings & then restore your Ipad from last backup. the software update will remain on your Ipad and your emails settings should come back.

Message was edited by: Appltini

Dec 23, 2010 6:45 AM in response to Appltini

This just started with mine as well. Tech support said they'd never heard of it. They had me reset network settings, but that didnt helpI've done soft and hard resets, no luck. Unfortunately, I'm on the road and wiping/restoring is not an option. Anyone find an alternative solution? Did people find that the restore did work? I ask because I saw on another site that restore did not help someone, but that would be strange...

Dec 28, 2010 1:14 PM in response to sneufeld

What kind of mail servers have you configured connection to ?

I have found, that having a connection to a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 can cause the phenomenon described to occur... Exchange Servers are connected using the Microsoft defined protocol ActiveSync which is different from IMAP, Pop3 etc...

Also when mail doesn't synchronize, and when mail settings hang, I experience that the Safari web browser on the iPad is extremely unstable... IE, suddenly when surfing the web, Safari closes down and returns you to the home screen..

I have found that rebooting the Exchange Server can make the mail synchronize again and also make the "mail settings" section behave as supposed... But this can only be temporary... Shortly after or after a longer period, the same phenomenon can reoccur...

I am continuing my investigation with a better and closer cause description and hopefully another solution than rebooting the Exchange Server...

But please everyone; are you experiencing this only when an M Exchange Server is involved, and which version of Exchange ?

Best

Jakob

Dec 28, 2010 2:30 PM in response to jakobankerhansen

Hi Jakob -- I'm connecting to Exchange for one account, and Gmail (via Exchange) configuration for another. I am not experiencing any other system instability... I haven't had any problems since the 4.0 release for the iPad (until a few days ago), and have had this email configuration since then. Additionally, I've had one Exchange account and Gmail via IMAP (or POP3? Not sure) since April, again with zero problems.

I unfortunately don't know the Exchange server version we use, nor do I have the ability to reset it. I also can't access my mail settings in order to turn off any of the mail accounts to see if shutting one or the other resolves the issue.

Dec 28, 2010 2:33 PM in response to sneufeld

One other note - my battery drains very quickly now, even when in sleep mode the charge will drop over 30% overnight. I notice that, if I am in email, the network icon is constantly cycling, as if it is attempting to download messages and can't. If this is happening behind the scenes, it would explain the drain. Even if I switch to Airplane mode, the battery still drops when in sleep mode.

Dec 28, 2010 3:34 PM in response to Philly_Phan

I am on a different wireless network than usual, so I suppose that could be a possibility. However, when I turn off wireless on the iPad, I still cannot get into the Mail/Calendar/Contacts settings... As soon as I go into them, it freezes up and I need to kill it from the multitasker. In fact, I need to kill it twice -- I'll kill it, launch it again, it'll freeze on a completely empty page, I quit out, then kill it again -- and then I can get to Settings. But as soon as I click Mail/Calendar/Contacts, it locks up again.

Dec 29, 2010 1:27 PM in response to Appltini

Hi Appltini --

Thanks for your suggestion. I followed your instructions: the hard reset didn't work so I did the full wipe and roll back to an iTunes backup from early December. This seemed to do the trick and mail was downloading again. However, as of yesterday morning, the problem has resurfaced and I again cannot get to the Mail Settings page, so I'm not sure that this actually resolved the underlying problem.

Is there any way to turn on a "logging mode" or something similar in order to track this down further?

Thx,

Ramon

iPad Mail isn't downloading and can't reset via Mail, Contacts, Calendars

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