Yahoo Mail push problem with stock email app

[odoggg]

It is nice to see that Verizon is offering push services for yahoo mail (and possibly for others as well, I only tried yahoo) on select phones now, the Droid Charge being one of them. If you add a yahoo account in the stock email app, it configures it through "Verizon email gateway server" and the messages will be pushed to the phone just like gmail had been, and you will get your new messages almost instantaneously.

I previously had an htc incredible and that phone did not have that feature. My e-mails were being checked at an interval that I could select, but not pushed.

What this email gateway does is (as I understand it): 1) your phone sends your credentials to the gateway server where they are stored, 2) the server connects to yahoo mail servers with your credentials, and 3) whenever there is a new message, the gateway server retrieves and pushes it to your phone, in other words it pretty much acts as the middle man that has a notification capability. The gateway server only accesses your inbox folder and it only does incoming services. For other things such as sending messages or checking other folders, your phone connects to yahoo mail servers directly. My incredible on the other hand used to connect to yahoo mail servers directly for everything including inbox access and unfortunately those servers do not have the push capability to mobile devices.

I got the Charge over two weeks ago and enjoyed push on yahoo for about ten days. But then suddenly it stopped working. It would no longer update my inbox even when I selected refresh through the menu. If I went into other folders, they would update and I could send emails. However, my inbox would not update. I waited a day, then I went into settings/apps/manage apps and deleted the cache and data of the mail application to fix a possible glitch. (It works on the market app when all of your downloaded apps disappear from the list every once in a while due to a glitch)

I ended up with a blank inbox that couldn't download any of the messages. Then I removed the yahoo account and tried to readd. Now I get the "Fetching mailbox failed, retrying. . ." error and sometimes it retries for up to a half hour (until I manually stop it) or sometimes it says "Unable to connect to server" after a couple of minutes.

Following is a list of things I tried:

1) Set up a different Yahoo account:

Works without a glitch, push enabled

2) Try the original email account with wrong password:

Gives a credential error, so password authentication is not the problem

3) Manual configuration through selecting "Others" rather than "Yahoo Mail" in the add account menu:

Unchecking "Use Verizon email gateway" makes it work, but without push. My phone is able to connect to Yahoo servers directly with the same exact settings

I am pretty sure the problem is with the Verizon gateway server having a glitch with my email account. So someone in charge of that server has to go through the list of accounts set up and either reset or delete mine, so I can set it up again through my phone.

I called Verizon support the other day and finally talked to a level 2 rep after having to do the restart, take battery out and all that nonsense. It took them a while to understand the actual situation. It's not their fault really, my problem is complicated and a level 2 rep simply does not have that kind of knowledge. They tried to connect me to Samsung representatives, which was a waste of time, because there is nothing wrong with the hardware as it works with a different yahoo account with no problems, and it also works when connecting to yahoo directly. After spending two and a half hours on the phone, and after the rep talked to her supervisor and the samsung reps to learn more about the verizon gateway server, she finally told me I was right about the issue, and assured me that they would fix it and call me within two hours.

It has been two days, I haven't heard a thing.

What frustrates me is that there wasn't a single person there who could even grasp what could be causing the issue. They had never heard about the email gateway, I had to explain to them. I am not mad that the level 2 rep or her supervisor didn't know, but I am pretty **bleep** that they could not put me in touch with a person who did.

I know there is at least one person at Verizon who manages the gateway server, but the question is how can anyone contact him???

Verizon keeps offering these new services that are really cool for the most part, but their support system is very disconnected from their engineers/technical staff. The customer service is unable to fix problems other than billing issues, and their answer for everything else is to "take the battery out and restart the phone".

For now, I set up my account manually, without the Verizon email gateway, so I don't have "push" working. It's a shame because it is such an easy thing to fix only if I could get in touch with the right person.

[yost72]

Same Problem....any resolution??  Also have the "network dropping" issue that lots of people have posted about also.  Actually downloaded Yahoo mail app and it works pretty well, but just annoyed that the factory app wont show new emails..

[sekasnp]

Thanks for the original post on this topic, very informative and helpful.  Both my wife and I recently got the Samsung Droid Charge smart phones and the Verizon rep set up our separate Yahoo Mail accounts as default email on our smartphones (using Android's "stock" email program).  Everything worked fine for about 10 days, then on 6/22 we both had the same issue.  No more fresh/new emails coming into our INBOX.  I installed Yahoo's Mobile Mail app (for Android) on my wife's phone and it worked fine, she could see all the new emails in her inbox.  But today morning, we still had the NO MORE NEW EMAILS IN INBOX issue when using the phone's stock email program (on home page).

Then just about 1 hour ago today (~1pm EST), the issue went away and we now see our new emails again in the inbox.

Guessed Verizon fixed it!  Let's hope they fixed it for good!

[odoggg · Accepted solution]

UPDATE:

After waiting for about ten days, I tried setting up my e-mail the regular way (by selecting yahoo mail) again yesterday. To my surprise, it went through without a glitch. I guess the cache of the gateway server must have been reset.

I have been enjoying push for yahoo mail for the last 24 hours again. But I just noticed now, that the problems might be starting again. There are recent e-mails that don't show up on my phone, but do through yahoo's web mail page. When I select "refresh" through the menu on the phone, I see the circle in the top corner spinning for as long as I wait, but the e-mails don't get downloaded. That is exactly how my problems had started in the first place. I will give it the benefit of the doubt and wait and hope that it fixes itself.

There might be a compatibility problem with yahoo servers and the verizon email gateway because I have two gmail accounts set up with the stock e-mail the same way, both using verizon's gateway server for push, and they have both been working with no problems for almost a month. (Even though sometimes the "push" is delayed by up to 5-10 min, most of the time it is within a couple of minutes and that's fine, I'm not that picky) And when I do "refresh", ti only takes a few seconds to complete the request.

And I still haven't heard anything from Verizon.

[dublindennis]

Thanks for posting details on your Yahoo problem.  I just bought the Droid Charge for my wife and she had Yahoo up and running for a couple of days when it suddenly stopped.  You mentioned that you were able to install it as "Other Mail".  I tried with the default settings while unchecking Use Verizon Gateway and had problems connecting.  Do any of the ports at the Yahoo side change from the defaults that are included when you use "Other Mail"?

[paulsmith15232]

The post linked to as the solution says that the service worked, for no reason, for just a few days before failing again.

I have had my Charge for two months and this exact same problem started a few days ago.

Please help!

[Tidbits]

are you guys using the plus yahoo servers or the regular yahoo servers.  I had that problem with the iPhones and a few winmo devices.  I ended up switching to the plus yahoo servers and I hadn't had trouble since then.