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?

Same here.

For interest only as it doesn't add to our understanding or fix the issue but does demonstrate how widespread it is:

i was in a meeting at a global technology company when the conversation turned to email. One of the engineers mentioned he was having trouble With his iPhone. I asked if perhaps he had encountered the dreaded phrase "This message has not been downloaded from the server." immediately the rest of the meeting erupts - my wife's iPad, my iPhone too, my kids iPhones/iPads. It was big audience 20-30 and it was 60% of the iOS users. In the end I flashed this thread up on the screen and put the feedback page and thread links in an email to all those affected. There was a lot of anger And obviously mocking from all the android drones.

what was really interesting was that a bunch of highly educated and technically competent engineers hadn't done any real fault finding, searched for this thread or thought to post feedback to Apple. ladies and gentlemen, we represent the proactive tip of a big iceberg (in the uk at least). It's worth checking if you encounter similar opportunities and recruiting more users to provide feedback.

COngratulate yourselves on taking action to become the informed and interested minority.

captnfi wrote:

Focus, Finch! Focus!!! You're getting way off topic here.

Please use your Level 7 status to Help those affected....We don't need a lesson on email security here....We just want our Apple Mail app to function like it "ALWAYS" has!!

Brilliant!!! 😁 Sorry Lawrence I know you provided an excellent post later in the thread explaining what you have been doing in the level 6 forum but this made me laugh....a lot. If nothing else this thread has restored my faith in the ability of forums to maintain a disciplined evidenced based accumulation of knowledge from Australia to Croatia to America. Maybe just a moment of regret if they fix the **** issue and I no longer need to do my thread then feedback routine?

I too have been dealing with his issue for several weeks--disappearing inbox and sent emails on a POP server. I've spoken with two Apple supervisors and was in contact with one of them till recently. She has stopped answering my emails. My wife has the exact same IPhone 6+, is running IOS 8.x, shares an email account with me and has no issues. This is ABSOLUTELY an IOS 9 issue. I have written a letter to Hiawatha Bray, the Boston Globe tech writer in the hopes that he can help focus some much-needed light on this issue. Glad to see someone at Forbes has written something. Without larger public exposure, we may be waiting a looong time for a fix.

Yes, Lawrence did redeem himself with his recent post, and I have new faith in him that he's on board with the rest of us affected ios9 POP mail users!!

Sometimes, a small digital kick in the you know what is all it takes to change a person.. 😁

Progress is a great thing!! Not sure Apple engineers will get a fix for this in 9.1. Might take a while longer....in the meantime, I'm using a 3rd party mail app, and am loving it!

BRAVO!!

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I have reported the problem through an internal channel.

However, citing security as a reason to not leave messages on the server is not a valid.

Sorry but I believe you are wrong. Whilst what you say about email security is true for the most sophisticated attacks (don't think the NSA is after my gas bill just at the moment) but for the majority of low tech email compromises (for example all the Apple users hit when there was the SSL bug in mail post the iOS 7 upgrade) it amounts to some form of compromise of the password followed by mining of data in the emails/email addresses left in the account. Pop does protect against this and when I suffered a email compromise because of the SSL bug the fact that there was only one email left visible on the server meant that only one of our frie has subsequently been plagued by the spam mail. And yes before anyone thinks to say it the password is tough (9 random letters, a capital, a symbol and 3 numbers - oh and I have OCD so I change all our key passwords every 4 months ...and no I don't write them down I use my Sherlock Holmes mind palace memory super powers).

Just thought I'd replay that I too have this problem in hopes that the more people who report it, the faster Apple might fix it.

MacRumors has picked on the story too with lots of comments:

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/09/ios-9-pop-email-account-issues/

And most of the comments are of the nature: "What? People are still using archaic POP?"

Both of these articles miss an important point: It affects IMAP also. If you don't have an Internet connection you can't view messages with attachments, because they are not kept on the client as they should be.

That's interesting - I didn't realize that. I guess I've not been away from both WiFi and a cell signal since I "upgraded" to iOS 9 and so haven't seen that on my one IMAP account - my iCloud email.

Wow, I didn't know that was also the problem. I changed to imap when POP wasn't working and didn't like the fact that I couldn't read anything when not online. That is why I changed back to POP because I want to read my emails whether online or not. i assumed that to get that feature required POP.... I think I am more confused than when I started.

I also want to say that I have had a few times in the past that I contacted Apple about bugs that were emerging discoveries and every time I was handed off to a higher technical level person who actualy assisted in correcting the problem. So when I saw the response from a senior individual that POP always worked "that way" I was incensed, hence my comment that I wondered if anything would be done.

Morning fellow POP lovers. Great to see a bit wider publicity! And yes, a bit of "why POP"?? hate out there! 😍 Well because it WORKS(ed) for us. No, YOU don't have to use it if you are in love with IMAP, always have a connection, and are never offline ... but please support us in retaining our right to choose.🙂

Early on I also started to look at third party mail apps that supported POP, but on reading a few reviews I became aware your mail is now on someone else's server for them to rifle through. Okay I've put my tin foil hat on, 😕 but one of the reasons I like POP, is that I don't have to leave mail on a server. I know my piffling emails are of no interest, but I just like to know they are on my laptop. But if there is no fix, I may well have reconsider.

Have a great day POPs 🙂

I was not aware of this either Lawrence. Do you have any additional details you can share about how this issue may be impacting IMAP users?

I dont want to change the direction of this discussion at all. But am interested to understand how it might cross over.

Thanks for sharing this article James.

WOw this is serious. So switching to IMAAP is no solution? If you are relying on your device to read old emails when out of network range then you are stuffed. How did this get through beta testing?