Update to iPhone 3G E-Mail Problem

It took two trips to the Genius Bar and one phone call to Apple tech support, but my iPhone 3G e-mail problem has been solved.

The problem: My iPhone 3G would send and receive e-mail for a brief period of time. Then, it would stop. The spiral that appears at the bottom of the Mail program's screen, next to 'Checking for mail...,' would spin without end.

When told of the problem, the first Genius shrugged and said it must be a problem with AT&T (my main ISP). The second Genius told me to go home and restore the iPhone with backup. If that didn't work (it didn't), restore the iPhone without the backup. If that didn't work (it didn't), bring the phone back to the store for a swap.

I had made a third Genius Bar appointment to return my iPhone for a swap. But before going, I decided to call Apple's telephone support. The person I spoke to, Isaac, seemed to get the problem right away--that somehow, the iPhone's Mail program wasn't playing nicely with Outlook on my Vista PC, to which I sync the iPhone's e-mail settings, contacts, and calendar. He e-mailed me the steps he recommended to resolve the problem, and they worked. 

Here are the steps:

-- On the iPhone, delete all e-mail accounts.

-- Reset the iPhone's network settings (Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings).

-- Disable Wi-Fi (some e-mail accounts don't work properly if set up the first time with Wi-Fi in use, he explained).

-- On the iPhone, manually re-add the e-mail accounts. (When setting up my sbcglobal.net e-mail account, which is now an AT&T Yahoo service, I was advised to choose Yahoo as the service provider.)

-- Disable e-mail syncing with iTunes.

I followed these steps last Friday and have experienced no problems since.

But I have just begun to experience another problem. Some Calendar entries I've added to my iPhone never make their way into Outlook. I guess that's the next thing to deal with/figure out.

The iPhone 3G launch has been compared to Microsoft's bungled release of Vista; see this USA Today article for more on that. That's going a bit far, in my opinion. Yes, the iPhone 3G/MobileMe launch could have gone a lot more smoothly. Yes, my iPhone 3G experience has not been flawless. Aside from problems syncing with Outlook, there are things about the iPhone I wish were better. The battery doesn't seem to last very long; I really wish there were a copy and paste function; etc.

All that said, if I had it to do over again, I would still buy an iPhone 3G. But I probably would wait a few more weeks for the lines outside Apple stores to go down and for the initial bugs to be identified and fixed.

Comments

[Bob Wheeler]

Thank you Jim for, as usual, a very informative article.

[Jean]

I had the same problem. Thanks for posting the fix!

[John Hope Bryant]

I have a problem that no one seems to be able to solve. Not Apple Cares after 4 calls. Not after a reset of settings, and settings and data. Not even after the replacement of the phone. Everything works perfectly on my iPhone 3G, expect the mail app. I use Outlook via my server at work. I have a large file on the server, if that matters. I add the account and everything works well for a couple hours. Then the email disappears and the mail program hangs up, before returning to the home page. If I delete the email account and start over it is like ground hog day. The email streams in, and then 2 hours later…. This has happened countless times, on both iPhone 3G’s, and no one seems to have a clue. You seem pretty sharp. Can you help, before I throw this thing out the window and return to my Blackberry? Thank you.

[nathan]

how do you disable syncing email with itunes.

[doug]

email on my Iphone worked fine until I updated teh software, now I can't send or recieve mail from my business pop 3 account I have with godaddy. Nothing seems to work!

[Davis]

I can fix this problem if you have jailbroken software. For directions, email me at Dh1909@aol.com

[Daniel]

thanks man, email is working again.
i can't believe that 611 is only open from 7am to 9pm mon-fri.
Ouch!

[zenne]

Wow - same issue happened to me... suddenly the email stopped working this afternoon, but interestingly, I did the software upgrade 2 days ago, so didn't think the two are connected. This new iPhone 3G is terrible!

[goddess]

Thank you so much for sharing your procedure! This sovlved my email issues on my shiny, new iphone and I was very glad to have found it. :)

[netatme]

my ISP doesn't pulls mails from server before 15 mins delay anybody know how to get e-mail pushed to iphone as soon as they hit my business mail box hosted on linux web server at softlayer data canter in Washington D.C.

[Business Travel Guru]

I have had a review unit for several weeks have been using it for corporate exchange email alot but yet to see this issue, maybe a fluke for me! Anyway I love the device and interface dispite the long list of missing features. Add them Apple you will then truly have the best corp phone/email device ever

[emily sparkle]

@doug: i'm having issues with my godaddy account since upgrade, but my gmail seems to come back just fine...

[Esteban Mendez]

Very useful information. I was having exactly the same problem. Thank you!!

[Chris]

Thanks - I had identical problem which your fix has solved.

[Roland]

i had the same problem and found a simple solution (thx to google).

open mail where it says "checking for email"
hold down the home button (about 6-7 seconds) until the application will close (now it´s really closed)
restart mail and it works again!

at least for me it could solve the problem and is much easier thatn re-configuration...

cheers,
roland

[barry]

Roland,

Thanks for this info .. I used your 'close' procedure and it worked fine for me as well..

thanks,

barry

[Rob]

Thanks for the fix. I'm on vacation and am techno illiterate. You and Google are great.

[Isabel]

My issue is I have gmail and when I delete my mail from the Iphone it deletes off the server out of my gmail on the computer as well. How can i stop this from happening? I only want it to delete off the phone not my actual account on computer.

[Adam]

I solved my work email sync issues by turning off 3G on the iPhone. I don't believe that the iPhone is at fault though. The problem actually started months ago when I was still using a BlackJack II.

[Robert Bockenkamp]

I was having problems also. The outlook account (sbcglboal.net) and yahoo accounts would work sometimes and then just stop. I called Apple Care and the tech was very rude and said that the iPhone just simply would not work with AT&T. I thought that strange since this was the ONLY carrier they contracted with.
I called AT&T and informed them of this conversation with Apple and they set me up with a tect from Apple (RICHARD) who appologized for his conterpart.
He spent a LOT of time working on the problem. Had me delete all accounts. Turn off Wi-Fi, 3G network and set the accounts back up. Everything was fine but yahoo. We deleted that account and set up a gmail account. Now the two get everything from sbc to yahoo to gmail and after a week not a problem. Thanks Richard.
If you get a bad Apple tech or a rude one just call back until you get someone that knows what to do and will take the time to help.
Try to get Richard *lol he is great.

[blue]

My issue is I have gmail and when I delete my mail from the Iphone it deletes off the server out of my gmail on the computer as well. How can i stop this from happening? I only want it to delete off the phone not my actual account on computer.

[Julie]

did you ever get an answer? Same thing is happening with my outlook. I want the messages off the phone but not the work computer.

[ron]

hi,
im kinda on the same problem, except your fix wont help, because i can't delete my accounts. Everytime i try to go into settings, de phone crashes into home screen.
i found some solves for jailbroken phones but mine is still regular.

can anyone plz help me ??

i'm pretty desperate by now...

[Michael Tomaszewski]

Thank you all for the info. My computer and IPhone seem to have a superiority complex thing going on but with your advice i hope to remedy that. We all do need to get along! Thanks Again!

[Paul Jablow]

When I had a PC with Windows XP, email went to my iPhone only when Microsoft Outlook was off. Now I have a PC with Vista and it goes to the iPhone regardless. This means a lot of extra deleting on the iPhone, which can be slow. Any ideas on this?