iOS 9.0 and 9.0.1 show wrong unread count for Exchange

I should also note that the problem does not affect the badge on the home screen; it only appears in the app itself. When viewing the list of mailboxes, it shows the wrong count next to the Exchange mailbox, and when in the affected mailbox, it shows the wrong count in the footer of the email list. If there are actual unread messages, their number gets added to the wrong number. As they get read, the count goes down, occasionally adding one to the error.

The count of non-existent unread messages within the app continues to increase, while the badge remains unaffected. I discovered that one problem with the convoluted (and temporary!) fix is that links between contacts get broken, leading to a few orphaned Favorites in the phone app. Consequently, deleting and re-adding the Exchange account, only makes things worse overall.

The iOS 9.0.2 update does not seem to have resolved this problem.😟

Well, with 9.0.2 this technique worked! When I tried it with 9.0.1, it cleared the unread count in the app, but the problem returned as soon as I got more mail. Not so with 9.0.2 so far. It may actually be fixed!

UPDATE: 9.0.2 hasn't completely resolved the issue. It went for days before happening again, but over the weekend both of my devices experienced the problem at different times. I was still able to get it to display the correct count by turning off the Mail service on the affected account, restarting the device, and turning it back on, but the fact that it did recur means the problem is not fixed.

That would be unfortunate, since it's not likely to change for a while yet. 😢 Exchange 2007 is out of "mainstream" support, but it's still supported by MS until April 2017. It's also a bit annoying, since it worked just fine until the iOS 9 update. Oh well... Fortunately, the iPad Air 2 reboots pretty quickly. 😁