iPhone stuck“verifying” mail account in Settings app

I recently had this problem and was able to break out of this by putting the device in airplane mode, at which point it stopped the "verifying" spinner and warned me that it couldn't check my settings, but did let me proceed. Then, obviously, turning airplane mode back off, I was good.

Hi All,

Try using your iphone data (not WiFi) and try again.

I, too, had this problem. Swiping-out of the Setting screen kills the "verify" attempt- that is for sure, as @Norm123 suggested. Then I realized that I was on a WiFi with email ports blocked-therefor "Verify" was never able to verify. It was only when I switched off WiFi that i could continue to verify account successfully.

-Antonio

Thank you Rob - this worked for me too (after about 20 failed attempts taking me close to insanity).

There is clearly something very wrong with software automatically carrying out gratuitous checks which don't work, don't return an error message, and don't terminate.

Hello bagpipeguy

If you are having issues with accessing Settings, double tap the Home button and swipe up on Settings to close it completely. Then open it back up and then remove the email account that is having issues and then add it back in. For more information and troubleshooting, check out the articles below.

iOS: Force an app to close

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5137

iOS: Troubleshooting Mail

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3899

Regards,

-Norm G.

FYI - this is still happening, and the only solution seems to be to shut the phone down. It happens for me when I try to add a new SMTP server (smtpout.secureserver.net).

Thanks for the helpful instructions - I had gotten stuck in Verifying after making changes to my outgoing mail server settings. I did not have to delete the troublesome email account; I just had to edit them again and got them right on the second try. The successful Verification only took a few seconds. Clearly the Verifying code needs to have a reasonable timeout for a user interface.