The ICS update deleted my work emails!!!! Seriously Verizon?!?

mkrising
Newbie

After I got the ICS this morning my email folders were completely empty, every single one.

Other than Messaging, please tell me there is some hidden folder where the stock email app may have stored my messages. I've been through every visible folder and there is nothing there. Or, tell me if there's a way to back out of the update - data and everything.

Here's the story: Because my company uses POP3 email, my phone was set to 'Never Delete email from server.' That way I could still get all of my emails in Outlook on my computer -- where they actually matter. As of last night, I know I had several emails in my phone's Inbox and Sent folders, and one in the Draft folder. Like I said, this morning they are all gone...but there's more. For some reason the geniuses altered some of incoming/outgoing POP3 email settings to default. e.g., The outgoing SMTP port was changed to 25 (our partner ISP blocks it so I can't use it); and, 'Never Delete email from server' was changed to 'Delete email from server when I delete from my Inbox. (For the life of me I can't figure out why those two settings changed but my server, username, and password were all left intact?!) Consequently, the deletion of emails from my phone has caused them to also be deleted them from the POP3 mail server. Does that mean that all of the that emails I synced to my phone over the last five days (that have NOT been synced to my computer, btw, because I am on vacation) are gone FOREVER?!?

I am now well beyond frustrated. This is the second time in as many days that Verizon has $@%& something critical - first, it was my FIOS service and condescending customer service. Now this.   Between residential and wireless I pay Verizon a ridiculous amount of money each month, more than my combined power & gas utility bills. I'm thinking that the cancellation fees are PENNIES in comparison to the satisfaction I'd feel about not giving Verizon any more of my money.

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19 Replies
B33
Legend

There's a Email recovery App that should be able to get them back) since doing the Update Have a Look in the Playstore

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sharonk13509
Newbie

On the other side of this, since updating, I cannot get my emails to go away!! I have it set to delete from server when I delete from the handset yet every time my mails box refreshes it reloads junk emails I've deleted 10 times already!! This update is HORRIBLE

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vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Hi sharonk13509!

It certainly is no fun to continuously delete emails that you have already deleted! I'd definitely like to help! Since the settings were changed for your email, please delete the email account from your device and re-add it. (Menu>Settings>Accounts and Sync>Choose the email account> Remove) Use the same steps to readd it to see if this resolves the issue for you. Please post back with results, thanks!

Christina B
VZW Support
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

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klondike22
Newbie

<Duplicate post deleted for crossposting per the Verizon Wireless Terms of Service.>

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

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sharonk13509
Newbie

<Post deleted for discussion of moderation per the Verizon Wireless Terms of Service.>

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

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klondike22
Newbie

Still having problems with my earthlink account (see above) but have figured out one minor work-around. Can't do anything about the lost SENT messages, but I have found that entering (by hand) email adresses into the Phone Contact list gets the DISPLAY SUGGESTED ADDRESSES feature to work when I address an email.

Since I never had a need to have the email addresses in my phone contacts before, this seems to mean that I still have to enter 200 addresses by hand in phone book in order to get them useful in the email program.

I also tried a soft reset, as suggested in another discussion:did not help. I also tried completely removing my earthlink account from the Bionic and then adding it again. Did not help.

Any suggestions?

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klondike22
Newbie

My apologies to the moderator for cross-posting. I had written a very long post to another discussion that included similar problems, and in my haste and search for answers thought it expedient to simply copy the post over in hopes of getting a wider range of opinion. No, I never read the Terms of Service and to be honest this is the first discussion board I have ever posted to. That's what happens when you'e 65 years old. I did, however, write right up front that this was a copy of a post I had placed elsewhere.

When I saw the first message from the moderator that my post was up for review, I was impressed -- I thought someone was listening, had noted I defined some problems and was searching for answers. Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of a moderator.

So I am still looking for answers.

Let me re-state (not copy) the nature of my problems, so that my remaining post (above) is not left hanging in mid-air confusion. The Bionic update deleted a bunch of my emails, specifically all the SENTS from my Earthlink (POP) account; and the DISPLAY SUGGESTED ADDRESSES feature was not working, apparently (though I'm not sure) because it had also deleted all the addresses/contacts. I am still facing having to re-enter over 200 email addresses by hand. Surely there is a simpler solution out there? Switching to gmail is not an option, though I did start an account in order to get the Bionic up and running; however I never use it for emails.

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tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Welcome new poster!  Just a bit of background, this is a customer-to-customer forum, so Verizon reps rarely pop in and when they do, it's usually a week or so after something's been posted so that customers like ourselves can have time to help each other out.  Their rank denotes that they are a Verizon rep.

This is a self-policing forum, so the Mods respond to things that violate the Terms of Service, like cross-posting, name calling, curse words, etc.  They also help with branching off old discussions and other things that keep the forum running.  So with this forum, if the Mods are reviewing a post, it's probably not a good thing.

As for your Bionic ... welcome to the exciting and sometimes frustrating world of ICS !     No, you don't have to use gmail for your mail, but for the 'display suggested names' feature to work, your contacts (the new People) need to be on your phone.  Were they not on your phone before the update?  There should be a way to bring them over other than retyping them.  I'll find your other post and read the details there (and respond there as well).

klondike22
Newbie

Thank you for your gracious (and tactful) welcome. I'm learning.

I got the Bionic in June, added my earthlink account easily, and all the Email adresses were just there, just as they were on my earthlink webmail account. Never had a problem, never thought about it. I believe, though I'm not 100% positive, that I was even able to bring up the entire list on the Bionic when several people changed their addresses and I wanted to delete the old ones.

As I mention above (OCt. 28), I have found that if I now enter an email address into my PEOPLE  directory for phone calls, that the DISPLAY will work for emailing also. Unfortunately, I never had the need to do that before with a phone -- Bionic is my first smart phone. Ergo the 200 addresses I face entering.

again, thank you, tikibar1

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tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

I'm taking a shot in the dark here, klondike.  I'm wondering if maybe when you set up your e-mail on your phone, it was set up to go to your web mail?  In other words, that's why your contacts were visible there but they aren't physically on your phone?  You could change that by either adding a new e-mail account with the proper configuration or by deleting the current one and doing it again.  Here's the settings off Earthlink's page, if you don't already have them:

http://support.earthlink.net/articles/email/how-do-i-check-my-earthlink-email-on-my-android.php

That would also mean setting it up on your Bionic manually rather than letting the phone do it for you, just to ensure that you have it set up the way you want.

Since you mentioned in the other thread that the contacts are there but not the e-mail addies, you could just go contact by contact adding e-mail addresses, but that would obviously take a while if you have 200 to input.

Another option  is to export your Earthlink contacts from your Earthlink web mail and then import them on your phone.  Click the Export Address Book link from the Web Mail Preferences.  Save that .csv file on your computer, then copy it to the SD card in your phone.  Then open your People app, press menu, then import/export, then import from storage.  Choose which account you want the file stored; Backup Assistant+/phone should put them on your phone and you would have the option of using Verizon's Backup Assistant software to keep them backed up ... Google would put them in your Google account and you would have the option of using Google to keep them backed up.  Then follow the prompts for which contacts to import.

Hope this helps and doesn't screw things up even more.    Others may have other ideas.

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klondike22
Newbie

All good ideas, thank you tikibar1. I will try them out later tonight  -- preparing for hurricane at moment. Probably the manual set-up first, since I let the Bionic do it automatically. Twice.

The .csv approach also sounds good, plus it has the advantage of having Backup Assistant ... backing up. But does that approach automatically put those addresses into the Google account? That's a major thing I am trying to avoid. (I know too many people having their gmail accounts hacked. Earthlink may be no more secure, but it's so thinly used it's probably not worth a hacker's time.)

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tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

klondike22 wrote:

All good ideas, thank you tikibar1. I will try them out later tonight  -- preparing for hurricane at moment. Probably the manual set-up first, since I let the Bionic do it automatically. Twice.

The .csv approach also sounds good, plus it has the advantage of having Backup Assistant ... backing up. But does that approach automatically put those addresses into the Google account? That's a major thing I am trying to avoid. (I know too many people having their gmail accounts hacked. Earthlink may be no more secure, but it's so thinly used it's probably not worth a hacker's time.)

You're welcome.  Stay safe!

Like I mentioned in the earlier post, you have to choose which account the .csv file will be imported into, whether the phone or Google.

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klondike22
Newbie

Sorry for delay, still no power due to hurricane. (Two mile walk to friends house for recharging.) Prior, i did manage to try a couple of things, but to no avail. I was able to copy a .csv file from EarthLink webmail to the SD card, but then PEOPLE would not import it - PEOPLE says it wants a VCard format. I haven't had chance to go back to EarthLink and see if it offers me that choice.

Also I didn't get chance to manually re-set-up EarthLink onto the phone, but I did check the settings on the earthlink support page and they matched what was on the bionic. When I have a steady source of power and charging ability, I will try the manual re-set. But at this point, having spent a number of fruitless hours, I am tempted to just go to backup asst on the Verizon site and re-enter all my email addresses. I am not at all confident that there will be any other way to merge the two files.

When things settle down I will try your suggestions again, if only to complete your thoughts, and i will let you know the results. Your passion for these work-arounds is clearly greater than mine, and I appreciate the time and work you put in.

For what it's worth, I would also agree with some of the other commenters that battery life seems shorter. I have both the standard and the extended battery (quite helpful in a powerless setting); hard to say for sure though, since cell service is intermittently down here and i know if i leave the phone on it will search endlessly. I try to power down unless actually in use. Also I have found none of the battery saving functions that used to be on the phone other than display brightness and display turn-off time.

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tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Glad to hear you are safe and sound, even though power-less.

Yes, it may be easier/quicker in the long run to just re-enter the e-mail addies.  The only option I saw with Earthlink was to export as a .csv file.

You can still turn off background data to help with battery consumption.  And with ICS, you can disable any apps that you don't use.  There are a few threads on here with other battery-saving tips; I won't re-post them here since we shouldn't cross-post, but you may want to do a search if you need more info.

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klondike22
Newbie

I will look for those other postings, thanks again.

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tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

you're welcome

here's one of those threads:

https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/786821

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sharonk13509
Newbie

I don't think its our misunderstanding of moderator. I thunk it's

Verizon's. They also apparently have a very poor grasp on the concept of

customer service. So disappointing.

On Oct 29, 2012 11:11 AM, "klondike22" <community@verizonwireless.com>

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Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

When tikibar1 mentioned that this is a self policing forum, they were correct. It is the users who report the various posts to the moderators for review and/or action taken on the post.

As for your contacts question, do you have your email account setup as a POP, IMAP or Exchange account. I know with an exchange account, you can choose to sync your contacts for the server to the phone. I have that option with my Hotmail account on my Nexus because it was setup as an exchange account. I chose to not sync that contact list due to the fact there too many old contacts in that list.

The same email account is setup as a POP account on my Tbolt and I don't have the option to sync the contacts with that setup.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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klondike22
Newbie

My ancient earthlink account is set up as a POP. Contacts were synced on the Bionic until this recent upgrade.

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