After ios9 update my emails with attachments won't open and say "message not yet downloaded from server". They were there previously. How do I get them back?

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I'm able to reproduce the problem reliably. In checking on my laptop I had email configured to keep messages on the server for a week. I tried deleting the messages from the server, and immediately after that the messages on my iPhone lost their content. I'm continuing trying to narrow the problem.

One thing to check is if an account that is POP only on the server side behaves like this. I gather that most of the reports are from users of servers that offer IMAP, but iOS mail is being configured to access it with the POP3 protocol.

Thanks for the fine detective work. Our server was configured to enable both IMAP and POP. I just turned IMAP off and will watch for any change in behavior on my iPhone and will come back to you on that.

I also asked the forum host manager if it can be escalated to Engineering.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I also asked the forum host manager if it can be escalated to Engineering.

Thank you. I had this referred to Engineering on 11/1. In response to my email to someone relatively high up on Apple's food chain I got a next day phone call. The rep had me connect the iPhone to my laptop and then extract error logs from the Library. He sent a link to use for transmission of the logs that he sent to Engineering and he provided me with a case no. I've since sent him additional info which he acknowledged was tagged with the case no. and passed along to Engineering. I'm waiting to hear from a Technical Support Advisor who will convey a status when that's available.

Thank you.

I have also been testing and I had an example of an email I sent that retained the "preview" of the email but the body was gone. There were no attachments but there were a string of replies. This occurred while I wasn't online and when I returned to wifi it was again downloaded. I am keeping the emails that I want to save on the server for now. I don't think it is related just to size of the email. This email was sent last Friday and every other email was there while offline, including several with attachments.

I don't want to call Apple until I have a better explanation of what I am seeing so I can be taken seriously. I have sent in bug reports.

The message I previously sent was in regards to my iPad. I just tested my iPhone and I had 10 messages that had been there now have the placeholder This message has not been downloaded from the server. These are in the inbox and sent files. They contain or attachments or not. VERY random and all within 20 minutes of being offline. The messages are still on the server. I have plenty of memory 24 gb.

Just to add another email address to this thread, I am one of the probably huge number of people also suffering from this problem and have been watching this thread with interest. I have notified Apple using the feedback link.

To confirm, I have an email account with a uk email provider and I use POP because I have well over a gigabyte of emails - I use my email as a long term text database and to have that much storage at my email provider would cost quite a bit of money. I use my desktop computer as my "master" email storage and that downloads emails and then deletes them from the server. When not at home I download emails to an iPhone or iPad using POP without deleting from the server so that I can keep copies of important emails on my iPad or iPhone for later reference regardless of whether I've downloaded them to my desktop computer and/or whether I have deleted them on my desktop computer. Since upgrading my iPad to IOS9 all my emails with attachments from before upgrading (that have been downloaded to my desktop computer and then deleted from the server) are now empty with the "unable to download message", emails with attachments I've downloaded since upgrading have been OK initially but after a while have developed the same problem. The same emails on my iPhone, which has not been upgraded, are still ok.

It seems clear to me that, since the upgrade, IOS mail is expecting to be able to clear the local copy of the email to save storage and re-download it from the server when needed which is not how POP mail should be expected to work.

As far as I am concerned this is a very serious issue. POP email should not be wiped from the local device under any circumstances without user action! It seems as though whoever programmed the latest version of the mail app only understood IMAP and expected POP to work in the same way.

Greetings,

Over 70 email messages all readable. Almost 48 hours now and everything is working. I'm inclined it had to do with memory on the phone. My Storage is nearly 4 GBs.

I am pleased (sorry don't take that the wrong way!) to see more affected users posting in the thread, and giving feedback to Apple.

To confirm my set up:

I have POP in my Outlook on my Windows 7 laptop as my "master", messages delete from server once downloaded to here.

My ISP is Westnet and offers POP and IMAP.

My HTC M8 phone is on IMAP set to 1 days messages so I can see what's happening during the day.

iPad Air 2 set to POP. Used to keep messages and attachments I wanted to have easily to hand. (Do not have Mail going to icloud).

SInce this IOS9 problem I have now changed my settings so mail is now left on the server, and have IMAP (😠) on my IPad.

Re getting the POP bug message out, how about creating a thread on Mac Rumours and other Mac threads, and also commenting on sites where a tech reviewer/commentator has reviewed IOS 9 and comments can be made?

.

Two days ago I sent an email with screen shot attachments. I went back to the sent folder and reread the email serveral times. Today I went back to the sent folder to verify some dates that I had put in the email. When I opened the email today, it said "This message has not been downloaded from the server."

Former USMC, it appears that you are leaving these on your server and when accessing them are connected to the internet, correct? My experience is that the emails are fine unless you delete them from your server ot you don't have access to the Internet. Let me know if I have misunderstood.

It does seem to me that the new Mail App treats POP like imap and expects to always have an Internet connection and to leave everything on the server. I didn't buy a 16 GB iPhone so that I would have to pay cellular or be attached to wifi. Maybe I am not the customer the Apple wants anymore. They seem to prefer people to always be connected to the cloud. If that is the case we need more cell phone towers and cheaper plans!

This post is helpful. Keep up

The good effort, thanks!!!

Sent from my iPhone

I just found the following post, put up yesterday, on a website called Mashable. The article is at http://mashable.com/2015/10/06/app-thinning-fixed/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link #v9f2yTuQkkqz

The following is an extract from that article, which may shed some light on what Apple may have done to our emails:

One of the most important new features in iOS 9, at least for owners of 16GB and 8GB iPhones, was App Thinning, which lets developers slim down their apps by only delivering the parts your particular device actually need. (Further on in the article .....) A potentially game-changing feature for iOS device owners struggling with lack of storage space, App Thinning lets users download only the parts of apps necessary for their device, instead of the larger, universal version, which covers all device types.

I'm not in a position to say whether this is the cause of our problems, but perhaps one of the participants in this forum might like to follow this up with the Engineering Unit at Apple and ask them. Perhaps the thinned-down version of the Mail app has adversely affected POP accounts, given that in iOS9 you can no longer create a POP account without using the "garbage" or "gobbledygook" technique previously referred to.

Last night I sent over 400mb of emails with attachments to a POP3 account that is only accessed on the iPad (set to never delete messages). This morning when I checked email storage it was at 425mb - I could open the emails etc. All content was there.

Just checked again and email storage had gone down to 2.4mb. I opened the email app - and selected an email, I could open it, read the first few lines, but it had to download the renaming contents (embedded photos) from the server again. It is as if it was an IMAP account, instead of POP3.

The iPad is 128gb with 60gb of available storage - so available storage isn't an issue

It seems that email accounts are being treated as IMAP, even when set to POP3.

That is great Lawrence - thanks for working to reproduce this on behalf of all the users on this thread.

What happens next in terms of an escalation and resolution - based on your experience?

I agree with the other writers who have been working to try to isolate and troubleshoot this issue. POP is acting like IMAP since the ios9 release and seems to want to reload the message from the server every time vs storing on the phone, as has been the case for POP email for years prior to this. Once the message has been deleted from the server on my master machine - it's gone from the copy on my iphone and unretrievable in a matter of hours. My workaround has been to set my master machine to not delete at the server level.

It sounds like a couple of persistent users besides yourself have managed to get this escalated up the chain of command. What should we expect to see now in terms of next steps?