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Samsung Fascinate does not sync POP3 email automatically

Hi,

Recently upgraded from HTC INC to Fascinate mainly because of the screen size and better sunlight visibility. My HTC worked just fine, both with 2.1 and later with 2.2 Froyo, never had any problems with any of POP3 and GMAIL accounts - they were set to check for new messages every 5 minutes.

It is a different story with Fascinate. Gmail accounts sync just fine as far as I can tell you, but my POP3 account which is set to sync every 5 minutes, does not sync unless I turn the phone "On" or manually open the account. Please note, I am not using Wi-Fi, just 3G and GMAIL sync without problems at the same time giving me a ring every time new message arrives. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is disabled on my phone.

This is unacceptable and this bug (along with many others on this phone) should be fixed ASAP! One of the main reasons people buy a smartphone is because of email. First, Samsung decided to go without any message lights on this phone, and now for whatever reason we even can't have a signal that a new message has arrived unless we check and refresh manually each POP3 (and I believe I tested it with IMAP as well, which btw does not allow you to move messages to folders which is the main reason you'll use IMAP, but that's another story) account !?!

Verizon/Samsung, please fix this mail sync issue!!!!

Comments

inseek

Just tested with IMAP account and it does not sync. I must also say that the Fascinate phone I am using right now is brand new phone that just came today, the one I was using before this last 5 days failed and I sent it back to VZW. Both phones act the same way so it is not a defective phone, it is a bug with email client on this phone.

There is another thing I noticed about POP3/IMAP client. Sometimes it will just stuck on "Downloading messages..", will show rotating ring in the top bar but will not update/download new messages unless you kill the process with Task Killer or power cycle the phone. At the same time while email client is unable to download messages, you can browse internet via browser so there is no problem with 3G network.

inseek

Update: Time to time the sync works fine the way it should. When I got my first Fascinate, IMAP sync worked just fine for a while, and then the problems began. I was thinking that some of the apps I installed cause the problem, so when I got the replacement device this morning, the only thing I installed over stock apps was Google maps. I am using TouchWiz and all phone's factory default setting. After experiencing problems with POP3 almost the whole day (and was forced to power cycle the phone twice in order to get latest emails coming at the same time on my Outlook), all the sudden it started syncing again 15 minutes ago. Will see how long it will last... I am using IMAP at this moment that wasn't syncing last 2-3 hours..

Phase3Linda

I have the same problems with POP3 emails:

- unpredictable syncing - sometimes works, most of the time it doesn't

- manually attempting to sync results in 'Loading Messages' endlessly

In my case, no other apps have been loaded other than what Verizon provided with the phone.

The whole reason I moved to this phone was to enable mobile email.

Did yours continue syncing appropriately? Any suggestions for me?

[Please keep it clean - Thanks!]

mikemctx

I have had the same issue and worked extensively with Verizon and Samsung to troubleshoot. Here were the troubleshooting techniques that didn't accomplish anything:

1) Delete Account, Reinstall Account

2) Factory Data Reset, Reinstall Account

3) Replace Samsung Fascinate with another new Samsung Fascinate

Finally got to Samsung Technical Support Level 2. In my case they determined that the problem was that I was trying to access a Roadrunner POP3 account and Samsung doesn't work very well with Roadrunner and they said they have no plans to address this. Apparently Roadrunner uses a different protocol that Samsung doesn't communicate with very well.

They provided 2 workarounds:

1) Don't try to access Roadrunner mail. Have gmail your Roadrunner mail and then have phone get gmail. (Not a good solution for me)

2) Use K-9 mail app to get Roadrunner mail. I've been doing this and it seems to work 95+% of the time.

I provided this feedback to Verizon Wireless technical support in hopes that they could get Samsung to come up with a better resolution.

Just my experience - for what it's worth.

Mike

Phase3Linda

Thanks for the reply, Mike. I'm also on Roadrunner, unfortunately. Because the email address is a domain showing my business name, moving is painful and involves changing a number of employee's computers.

I'll give the K-9 app a try. If that doesn't work, it looks like I may be better off returning the Fascinate and moving to a provider that is more 'friendly' to Roadrunner and other POP3 mail servers.

mikeinaz

Glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem. Switched to Fascinate from Droid because I got tired of the Droid issues and unfortunately that resulted in new issues...sigh... Why can't VZW give us phones that do as advertised. I'm using Cox as email provider, (3 accounts) and a hotmail account, all with the same results. Tech support from VZW and Cox is totally worthless on this issue with each blaming the other for the problem. A VZW tech support indicated that a fix was in the works, but I think he read it off this board. Sure wish we could get this resolved

Reconguru

My email is very important to me. I can't get mine to sync automatically and I miss many important emails. This cost money and I am unhappy with the fascinate. Setting up email was easy on some accounts, but not all. Took a lot of my time and it still does not work.

My Iphone and Storm work perfectly. I may return the Fascinate soon.

loneMADman

Folks, avoid the frustration and simply install K9 Mail app. It's free and works great. It's also much better than the default Verizon / SS mail app.

portopa

My wife and I bought Samsung Fascinates on the same day.

After (2) months of worsening POP3 performance, ending with my wifes phone receiving no email at all for 8 days, I finally installed K9. It works perfectly, leading to this conclusion: There is nothing wrong with the phone, or my POP provider, it is simply a bad default email program on the phone.

Issues we had with the default email program:

Some email received with year of 1900
No auto-sync, though it was set to check every 5 minutes
Some email that had been downloaded would disappear, on at a time, right before our eyes
Manual sync would sometimes work

Things we tried, to no avail:

Phone Factory restore
Delete POP account and re-create on phone
Check and reconfirm all POP settings many times

I work in IT, and I figure a team of 6 people working for a week or less could easily identify and resolve this problem. POP mail has been around forever, and it isn't that hard to troubleshoot. Why Verizon would rather have hundreds, if not thousands, of new customers swap out their Fasinate phones makes no sense to me. And imagine how many potential new customers are choosing to buy other phones, with other providers, after hearing about the Fasincate email problems.

Verizon is probably losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on this issue in the short term alone. You'd think someone in the company would point this out to the people who are supposed to care about the bottom line. Don't they have a company suggestion program or something??

Anyway, thanks to all who suggested K9 Mail. Wish I had loaded it weeks ago.

LandLockedPH

It may take a team of six if they're working in India like most of Verizon's tech support.

Lakin

I saw the post about K9 Mail app to solve my POP3 mail problems, but a google search of the k9 mail app states that it sucks the battery life very fast (and "ran the cpu at 90%). Has anyone here who is trying the k9 mail app found that it sucked their battery down by running the cpu constantly???

Phase3Linda

For those successfully using K-9, did you first delete all other email accounts in your Fascinate? I attempted to install K-9, but could not get it to successfully configure (email tests failed) with the same SMTP and POP3 server settings I used in the default email app.

Genevajo

This is EXACTLY the same problem I have! I continually have to shut phone off and turn back on to get my emails.....I have 3 phones on Verizon for over 10 years (my daughter's Blackberry does NOT have this problem) - I do not want to switch carriers but this problem is really not acceptable.....Please Verizon can we address this?!

HeidiU

I am having similar problems with my new fascinate. I have yahoo and even manually syncing is not working. I installed the Yahoo App and its works ok to see email but not to reply. when I reply, It stays in outbox indefinitely. NO idea why.

I consider myself fairl techie but I cannot seem to follow this thread at all. Any ideas to help me?

Thank you!

Bri333

I continue to have these same problems. The phone works smoothly for a corporate Exchange account. But all my POP accounts it bombs. Sometimes turning phone off and on helps, but not always. Sometimes outgoing messages stay in Outbox and will not Send (even after phone is turned off and on).

K-9 worked at first but is now not working smoothly. I keep polling off and manually check for emails, but it has some of the same POP issues as the default Fascinate email program.

As my job is abandoning Exchange I'm very concerned that I won't get my work email smoothly and that is why I bought this phone. Verizon--it is imperative you work with Samsung to get this fixed. I bought the phone specifically to be able to see my email all the time.

GSaldana

Used to have a BB, went to the samsung because of the features but the e-mail functionality (or LACK OF) fails miserably. Also having e-mail issues with this blasted samsung phone, I'm ready to throw it against the wall or use it as a fishing line sinker and go back to BB, what's the use of having all these bells and whistles if one of the most important features of a phone like this doesn't work as advertised?

VZW is about to ship me a third device because they keep saying its the hardware, are they playing dumb or they really don't have a clue of what the problem is? Are they going to replace it a dozen times before they realize what's really going on and actually fix it?

Installed K9 and after a while uninstalled it, it does deplete the battery very fast and in my opinion it also defeats the purpose of having a smart phone. All these workarounds are not a real solution to the problem, they just help you limp by without actually fixing the problem. It's like buying a new car and taking it back to the dealer because the A/C doesn't work properly to have it fixed just so they can tell you "oh, just roll down the window, it will be fine"......

I feel cheated and very disappointed.....

NuDroidUsrr

I have a few email accounts, 1 at RoadRunner, 1 at GoDaddy, and I use Gmail. A friend of mine uses Roadrunner also, and he bought a Fascinate shortly after I did. I have never had any major problems sending or receiving email from Roadrunner. It gets setup fine, the only thing I have noticed is that I have to shut my phone off and restart it like once a week or so, otherwise the email quits working. Here is the funny part. My account works fine on my friends phone, but his account does not. His account does not work on my phone, but mine does. I think it has something to do with RoadRunner on how they setup the accounts, or some access of that nature..

I can't explain it, but we have tried many different ways to make it work. Every time we talk to Verizon, they point to RoadRunner, and when I called Time Warner, they could not give me a straight answer as to why 1 account would work on my phone, but another one would not.

10sEn

If you're using an app killer tool, make certain that the email app is not checked/killed or it may not query when it's supposed to. Honestly, I can't say that I've noticed a problem with email on my phone.

Also, IF email is vital to your livelihood (i.e., you earn a living based on timely information), you don't want to rely on a POP3 email account which queries for emails. You want to use something that pushes email through (i.e., virtually instantaneous email delivery). If this is the case, I would recommend using a free application, such as K-9 Mail or Maildroid. If secure emails are a must, try Secure9 instead of K-9.

10sEn

btw, on a similar but related note, the syncing issues with POP3 email can also occur if you're using a battery saver application which controls your internet connection when your phone is off.

JaziJoi

I have a Roadrunner Account for two of my emails and I have a GoDaddy email account for my business as well. I have absolutely NO problems sending receiving my mail. I get my mail immediately. I use MailDroid. I deleted my email accounts from the stock email and then downloaded MailDroid. I then pulled my battery out and reset everything. Then I added my accounts. I've not had one issue with my email. I've been using it for about a month now. My phone has worked flawlessly as well. Try downloading MailDroid. Worst thing that can happen, is you're not satisfied and you uninstall it. You can use the Free version, which I downloaded first. Had no problems with it either. I just don't like ads so I purchased the actual application which eliminates the ads. Hope my two cents helps! :smileywink:

NuDroidUsrr wrote:
I have a few email accounts, 1 at RoadRunner, 1 at GoDaddy, and I use Gmail. A friend of mine uses Roadrunner also, and he bought a Fascinate shortly after I did. I have never had any major problems sending or receiving email from Roadrunner. It gets setup fine, the only thing I have noticed is that I have to shut my phone off and restart it like once a week or so, otherwise the email quits working. Here is the funny part. My account works fine on my friends phone, but his account does not. His account does not work on my phone, but mine does. I think it has something to do with RoadRunner on how they setup the accounts, or some access of that nature..
I can't explain it, but we have tried many different ways to make it work. Every time we talk to Verizon, they point to RoadRunner, and when I called Time Warner, they could not give me a straight answer as to why 1 account would work on my phone, but another one would not.

PO_pack_mule

I Have a msn account and was having the same issues. Installed the k-9 mail app and have had no problems since. It pushes email through like clockwork!

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