intermittent: mail does not download

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Level 1

5 points

intermittent: mail does not download

Hi,

I manage around 20 iPhones for our firm, which are a mix of iPhone 6, 5S and 5C. We have an in-house Exchange 2010 server running the latest updates.

Our heaviest email user receives around 300 emails per day and is often out the office. He currently uses an iPhone 6 (running iOS 8.1). He previously had an iPhone 5C running various versions of iOS 7 and 8.

Across both device and different iOS versions he regularly has issues where he would check his email, the spinning wheel would show up and the message "connecting..." would appear at the bottom of the mail app but no emails would come in. This could last around 1 hour. During this time he can be either on 3G, 4G or wifi and sometimes moving between these connection types. Eventually, he would turn off his phone, turn it back on again and a flood of unread emails would flow in.

Typically the pattern is he is returning to the office from being on 3G or 4G and when connecting to wifi the emails would flood in. However, this is not always the case. For example, he just returned to the office, we watched his phone connect to our internal wifi and we waited. After a few minutes, we pulled down in the mail app to refresh it. Waited again but still nothing. So we switched it off and on again, then 10 new emails appeared instantly.

No other staff appear to have this problem (at least no one has reported it to me).

Our internal wifi resolves the same public DNS address for our Exchange server as outside (eg when on 3G/4G) so this is not a DNS issue. Besides, others would have the same problem.

Having the user force quit the app multiple times a day, or reboot, isn't really a solution. Is there anything else I should consider for troubleshooting?

Thanks.

iPhone 6, iOS 8.1, Problem occurs in other devices too

Posted on Nov 12, 2014 3:35 AM

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Answer 1

ehauser

Level 1

0 points

Nov 14, 2014 5:33 AM in response to Yorkie66

Just to follow on to Yorkie66's post, I too see this on my iPhone 6 Plus and another user with an iPhone 6 both running iOS 8.1. Doesn't matter what the connection type is (WiFi, 3G or 4G) or where the phone is at the time (in office, at home or on a job site), email just doesn't come through. It's only when manually refreshing the mailbox or taking an action on another email does the entire backlog of emails come to the phone. We're running Exchange 2007 (still) and support a very mixed environment of iOS and Android devices along with OSX and Windows and so far it seems only a couple of the iPhones have seen this issue.

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Answer 2

Kalsta

Level 1

55 points

Mar 31, 2015 7:43 PM in response to Yorkie66

This happens to me too with all my POP email accounts. It seems completely random, and the problem persists over a wi-fi connection. Very frustrating. I've tried refreshing by dragging down, going in and out of mailboxes, restarting the Mail app… nothing seems to work consistently. Sometimes it will say it's 'Checking for Mail', sometimes not… sometimes it will even momentarily say it's downloading 1 of 1 messages and then nothing shows up!

Did either of you guys find a solution?

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Answer 3

duncwade

Level 1

0 points

Nov 1, 2015 2:21 AM in response to Yorkie66

Hi

I have the same problem but I am only using mail for personal use and have a .mac/.me email account so no excuses from an Apple perspective. Did you ever get to the bottom of this?

Thanks

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Answer 4

Nov 8, 2015 5:41 PM in response to Yorkie66

I have had this problem with my iPhone 6 and new iPhone 6s. It is most noticeable when traveling to a different time zone. Complete reboot of the machine seems to be necessary for the email to work, and sometimes to get the iPhone to even connect to WiFi. I have Exchange, iCloud, and Gmail accounts on my email, and usually it affects all of them, but sometimes just one or two.

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