iPad email crashes on iOS 5

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Level 1

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iPad email crashes on iOS 5

My iPad email crashes on iOS 5. I open email, begin typing, and before I can complete a few sentences the email window closes and I am returned to the home screen. All work is lost. I have performed a restore from backup and the problem persists.

I purchased the iPad over a year ago primarily for away-from-home email. It has worked flawlessly until now. The iOS 5 update renders the device almost useless to me. I am shocked that Apple has released such an unstable new operating system. I am disappointed that no official acknowledgement of the problem has been offered by the company.

Based on my experience I stongly urge iPad users to not upgrade to iOS 5 until this issue is addressed.

iPad, iOS 5

Posted on Nov 3, 2011 8:25 AM

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Answer 1

King_Penguin

Level 10

334,156 points

Nov 3, 2011 10:27 AM in response to pjackman

A small minority of users have had problems - advising people not to upgrade is OTT

Try turning the account off and on : Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars , then tap the account on the right, slide Mail to 'off', exit settings and go back into the Mail app, and then go back to Settings and slide Mail back to 'on'

If that doesn't work then try closing the Mail app completely : from the home screen (i.e.not with the Mail app 'open' on-screen) double-click the home button to bring up the taskbar, then press and hold any of the apps on the taskbar for a couple of seconds or so until they start shaking, then press the '-' in the top left of the Mail app to close it, and touch any part of the screen above the taskbar so as to stop the shaking and close the taskbar.

Also do a reset : press and hold both the sleep and home buttons for about 10 to 15 seconds (ignore the red slider), after which the Apple logo should appear - you won't lose any content, it's the iPad equivalent of a reboot.

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Answer 2

pjackman Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 3, 2011 11:01 AM in response to pjackman

Thanks for your suggestions King.

I applied your recommendations: turning off all of my accounts, exiting settings then turning them back on, shutting down the email app (thanks I didn't know about that), and rebooting.

When the iPad restarted I began composing an email. I set the iPad down after a few paragraphs and went to the kitchen to grab a coffee. When I returned 5 minutes later the email app was closed and my email gone.

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Answer 3

pjackman Author

Level 1

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Nov 3, 2011 11:27 AM in response to King_Penguin

I re-opened the email app, entered a To address and left the cursor in the Subject line and the iPad on my desk. Two minutes later the app crashed again.

The email app appears to be crashing when it polls for new email. I have observed this now on 3 consecutive occurences. So I should be able to extend the life of the app by increasing the polling time interval.

Do you have any further suggestions based on this discovery?

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Answer 4

Nov 3, 2011 11:31 AM in response to pjackman

I am also having major problems with apps crashing after upgrading. One receommendation that has worked for other people is to download an app, any free app will do, and this is resolving app crashes for people. I am at work and can't try it, but will tonight. I am like you, I would not recommend to any of my friends with iPads to upgrade, because mine is un-usable. That may change tonight if downloading an app or restoring in iTunes can solve the problem (as has been suggested to me). Also like you, I immediately got lightly repremanded for suggesting that folks with iPads should not upgrade as I guess we are in the minortiy for being frustrated that the products we love are now un-usable.

So, to climb on my soapbox, I think users who are having major issues like we are should not be made to feel guilty for voicing their issues and concerns for other users. I may get this fixed tonight via what has been suggested, and if so, great, but I can't use my iPad any more the way things are, so dont tell me I should hush up about it. I and my family own the following:

1 Macbook Air
1 iMac
2 powerbook G4's
1 Apple TV
1 Clamshell ibook
2 iPhone 4S's
2 iPhone 3GS's
2 iTouch's
2 iPod Classics
1 Mac Classic from 1989
1 powerbook 520C from 1992
2 ipod nanos

So, I believe I have earned the right to voice my opinions to other iPad owners.

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Answer 5

Nov 3, 2011 12:06 PM in response to pjackman

Allright. After doing some more research and calming down a bit, I guess I should re-cant some of my statements and reserve judgement until I can try some things tonight. It seems it is entirely possible that my problems are not because I upgraded to IOS 5, but rather that I upgrade the OS at all. It seems sometimes when people upgrade the OS (not just 5, but previous versions as well) the devise can get in a state where it thinks there is some security problem with the apps and downloading a new app fixes it. I will post an update with my findings tonight when i get a chance to try it.

I guess all my problems with my iPad, plus finding lots of posts from people with similar problems, made me pretty sure it was IOS 5, when that may not be the case.

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Answer 6

pjackman Author

Level 1

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Nov 3, 2011 4:12 PM in response to pjackman

I have determined that one of my three email accounts appears to be causing the email app to crash when the Fetch New Data process runs.

I discovered which account was responsibe by first turning them all off. I then turned the first one back on, opened the email app, started a new email and waited for the Fetch process to run (the setting for this on my iPad is 15 minutes). After waiting for a Fetch cycle to complete, I turned off the first account and repeated the process with the second one and then the third one.

It turns out that the first account in my list is causing the email app crashes. By turning it off the other two accounts will not cause a crash during a Fetch.

I have attempted to fix the first account without success. Unfortunately it's my primary email account. So far I have tried the following:

I deleted the account on the iPad and allowed iTunes on my Windows box to rebuild it through a sync.
I deleted the account on the iPad and rebuilt it manually on the iPad.

I don't know of another way to recreate the account. It's a pop account with nothing unusual about it and it worked fine before the iOS 5 update. Incidentally, the iPad would not accept the settings during the manual rebuild but allowed me to save the account. Once it was saved I was able to edit the Advanced settings and set Authentication to Password and the account would then send and receive emails but it continues to crash the email app during a Fetch unless I turn it off.

I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has successfully overcome email app crashes. I would also appreciate any suggestions about how to successfully rebuild this account.

A special thanks to Austin Rob for his comments above. BTW Rob, I tried adding a free app but it didn't help.

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