Q: 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?

My update on the nightmare: I downloaded 9.2 as soon as it became available. Having already written off my IPhone as a reliable email device, I had no email of consequence on the phone I needed to keep, so I deleted the only two POP3 accounts I still had on the phone and started from scratch. I recreated these two accounts and since then, have not seen the dreaded message. However, there still appears to be programming in 9.2 that attempts to clean up the mail app. Storage has yet to exceed 25 mb. I'm keeping email in my inboxes to see how large it will allow it to get. Also, as I did when testing earlier versions of 9.x, I've put my phone in airplane mode without turning on WIFI and have been able to retrieve all messages, BUT, graphics and some linked content in these emails drop when doing so. To the best of my recollection, POP3 email used to be downloaded in its entirety to the phone and was 100% retrievable regardless of internet connectivity, so this would appear to be one of the space saving features Apple is holding on to. I will continue to monitor and contribute to the discussion if I come across anything new. Good luck to the rest of you.

You are right on the money.  If Kelly considers what Apple did being great b/c it was up front, then that bar could not be set an lower.  Among the long list of fixes in his article there is no mention of the dysfunction of POP mail.  In stating that Apple did something great here 'being up front' merely reinforces the adage that water seeks its own level.

http://onforb.es/1YZ2UCK

It's now 72 hours after iOS9.2 was installed and POP mail issues cited on this thread appear to have been eliminated.  Hopefully that result will have some legs.

Interested to hear if anyone has a clue on why mariotheplumber keeps retrieving messages that are no longer on the server.

@Rontu posted on Twitter that the assessment by @GordonKelly of Apple have done something great here by "being up front" was totally lame.  We'll see what if anything Mr Kelly has to say.

@scoutSF

I concur with your observations re body text and attachments now remaining visible when offline (or in Airplane mode), but losing access to linked or embedded content.  Previous "working" versions of the iOS email client did retreive and locally store the entire email content - with images, links and attachments - thus allowing full access to downloaded content when travelling or when network connectivity isn't available (such travelling by air - hence "airplane mode" where all network connectivity Is disabled). 

This issue applies equally to both POP and IMAP; this is a problem with local message storage and display - unrelated to network transport or email protocol use.

if loss of embedded content is a new feature, then this is a feature not shared with the majority of email client software.  If it's an intentional space-saving routine, then it should be made configurable.  In general, only the very smallest iThings suffer from issues with restricted memory.

Since upgrading and extensively testing email in iOS 9.2, I note that some email that fails to display when offline is often visible for the briefest instant - a mere "flash".  This leads me to conclude that email content is actually saved in its entirety - but due to revised behaviour (or simply a bug) where embedded content is demonstrably reloaded upon every access; if an active network connection is not available, the embedded content is simply not displayed.

Similarly, this new "fixed" version has new behaviour... whereby the last viewed message is replaced with a " no message selected" banner when waking from a locked or "off" state.

IN conclusion email in iOS 9.2 is less broken than it was in iOS 9 and 9.1 - but it's far from fully fixed.

AS an aside the double capitalisation issue appeared in an 8.x update - but was fixed.  It has now returned In all versions of 9.x.

"Since upgrading and extensively testing email in iOS 9.2, I note that some email that fails to display when offline is often visible for the briefest instant - a mere "flash".  This leads me to conclude that email content is actually saved in its entirety - but due to revised behaviour (or simply a bug) where embedded content is demonstrably reloaded upon every access; if an active network connection is not available, the embedded content is simply not displayed."

I had this same experience with a set of emails from the same retailer and noticed that if I forwarded the email the message showed up.  This was both on and off wifi.   Strangely, after various resets the problem with those emails went away.  In fact, when I open an email with photos there is a quick flicker as they load.  Seems different from the past.    I now have around 80 mb of stored emails and that is definitely an improvement.

My Twitter post got Gordon Kelly's attention. 

LotusPilot wrote: "Since upgrading and extensively testing email in iOS 9.2, I note that some email that fails to display when offline is often visible for the briefest instant - a mere "flash".  This leads me to conclude that email content is actually saved in its entirety - but due to revised behaviour (or simply a bug) where embedded content is demonstrably reloaded upon every access; if an active network connection is not available, the embedded content is simply not displayed."

As far as I know this is normal when the image isnt actually in the message but instead a hyperlink to the server where the image resides?

now, I may be wrong here but as far as I am aware, this is the case with ALL mail clients not just Apple?

I read this article with mounting amazement. I can only assume that for Mr kelly " up front" and "after the event" are infact the same concepts.

several deletes later and a soft reset and the "resurected emails" have stopped appearing. Fingers crossed this remains the same. Currently busy on the issue the 2015-005 security update has caused.

Apple, Apple, Apple!

Since upgrading to 9.2 my Ipad2 is now behaving properly. My messages are all were they should be.

So I feel a bit more optimistic.

sounds to me as if somehow, only the Apple Gods know about, you had multiple caches which you have now been deleting one after the other.

cusance wrote:

 

As far as I know this is normal when the image isnt actually in the message but instead a hyperlink to the server where the image resides?

now, I may be wrong here but as far as I am aware, this is the case with ALL mail clients not just Apple?

You are correct. Most email from businesses do not contain images. They contain links to images hosted on their site. The mail client retrieves the image every time the message is opened;it is not stored locally. They do this for at least 2 reasons:

• If you send a million emails, each with an embedded image, the bandwidth used to transmit them and the storage required on their server to hold them would be enormous. Sending links, each image is stored only once.
• They can detect when the image is displayed in your email client, so they know that you read it.

Mail behavior is mostly good now, but occasionally the Mail icon shows X messages, but they're not visible in the inbox. They do appear, though, after a reset. And, occasionally, a message is moved to Trash, but then it doesn't appear in Trash. Ancient, previously deleted, messages do continue, also occasionally, to appear in Trash.

Yes, software is hard. How about just making the iOS 8.X Mail app available again :-)  It simply worked, and I do not need emoticons.

Another 24 hours has passed with no problems. Mail App storage now up to 148MB

oh dear, I tempted fate didn't I.

So after last 12 hours attempting to fix the video playback issue created by OSX security update 2015-005, I'm back to messing around with the iPad.

Guess what - as soon as I delete more than 4 messages at the same time from the Inbox - then the hundreds of deleted emails are resurrected in the Trash folder.

Next steps: 1) delete the email account from iPad and reinstall; 2) reset iPad as new device and start again.

Total amount of time this week, wasted on ******* around with Apple issues 30+hrs.

At one time - Apple stuff just worked (the fact it looked pretty as well was a bonus). Alas, it seems those days are gone, cause it don't work and big and shiny ain't pretty!

I'll keep you posted. On the upside, I'm only seeing the occasional message with the dreaded placeholder. I haven't worked out why yet.