Some emails don't arrive on some clients

[AlvinT]

This is weird, never happened before & I've been on Fastmail for years!

I have several email clients, and access my mail from all of them from time to time. I have a smartphone (android) which gets my fastmail mail and I frequently see my incoming messages there first. I have fastmail set up as a POP account

On Friday I saw a few messages (all from ISP's local to New York, but different ISP's) on my phone. When I tried to look for them on my desktop they WERE NOT THERE. I have no idea why.

Repeated again today with ONLY ONE MESSAGE which appeared and still is on my smartphone but on neither my fastmail web page nor my MAC mail client.

(the messages are not in Trash nor in my junk folder)

Any ideas will be oh so greatly appreciated!!!!

[Nikolaos]

Is your phone somehow set to delete popped messages after retrieval?

[AlvinT]

No, there is no such setting as far as I know

Intermittent thing ... never happened before. How could it skip the fastmail access and go right to (some) pop clients??

[Nikolaos]

Only other thing I can think of is just a delay for some reason. I had that happen once, where an email arrived really quickly at one account but much later at another one ...

[AlvinT]

Originally Posted by Nikolaos

Only other thing I can think of is just a delay for some reason. I had that happen once, where an email arrived really quickly at one account but much later at another one ...

That occurred to me ... but doesn't it all go through fastmail, and shouldn't it appear first on the fastmail.fm web browser interface?

and by the way it's 2 days now and there is no sign of the mail anywhere except on my phone. I think a total of 4 messages (I get 20-50 per day, not including spam)

[n5bb]

Welcome to the EMD Forums, AlvinT! There are several sub-forums here at EMD, and such Fastmail issues really belong in the Fastmail Help and Current Issues Forum. I'm sure a moderator will move it there -- do not double-post, please.

I agree that a problem with the POP client in your Android smartphone is probably causing this. POP clients behaving badly can clear your messages on the server, since that is the default behavior of the POP standard (pull down all messages and delete them from the server). Fastmail recommends use of IMAP for this and other reasons. If for some reason you can't use IMAP on your smartphone, you can probably get it set up to "keep messages on server". But IMAP seamlessly keeps this working much more reliably. I don't have an Android phone so I can't give you detailed setup details, and so far there isn't any help for such devices in the Fastmail online help or Fastmail Wiki. But another user might provide some more specific assistance.

Bill

[n5bb]

It took me a while to make my last post, so I now am viewing your last comments. That is strange. Some comments you made have me wondering about the frequency of this problem.

• Are only a few messages showing up on the phone -- but not the Fastmail web account?
• Or are no new messages now visible on the web account -- but they are all delivered to the phone?
• Look at the delivery addresses for those messages showing up on your smartphone but not the web account. Are the messages causing your confusion being delivered to a different address?
• If your phone service is like mine, there is a direct email address (through the phone company) which delivers email directly to the phone. Those message might not be coming through Fastmail at all.
• Be sure to look at the full headers (if possible) on the smartphone to see how they were delivered. The Fastmail receiving server has "messagingengine.com" in the name.

If that isn't the problem, here is what I suggest to check this out:

• Temporarily turn off the phone completely.
• Log into your Fastmail account through a browser.
• Send yourself a test message (to the same address you saw on the smartphone which seemed to disappear).
• This new test message should immediately be visible in the Inbox your web account after you click the refresh button. I'm assuming you don't have any rules which move or block this message.
  • If the test message is delivered properly:
    • Wait a few minutes and click refresh again and make sure it stays there for a while.
    • If it remains in your Inbox, then power up your smartphone and initiate a POP retrieval, and see if this is removing the message from the Inbox as viewed from the website. Remember to use the refresh button to update the website display.
    • If it disappears after delivery but your smartphone is off, then some other email client (probably using POP) is removing the messages. In the Fastmail web interface, look at the Options>Login Log. This shows the time, IP address, and other details about all devices accessing your Fastmail email account.
  • If the test message is not delivered, then some additional troubleshooting is required.
    • Are you sending the test message to your main account email address (used for the login name) or to an alias or a Virtual Domain alias?
    • If you are using an alias, then look at the Options>Aliases (or Virtual Domains) screen and check the Target set for that alias. You can have multiple targets (separated with a comma). But if you don't have your main Fastmail (login) email address entered, messages to that alias will not be delivered to your Fastmail account.
    • If a bad alias target isn't the problem, then check your Options>Rules screens. You may have a rule which is forwarding the emails to another account read by the smartphone and deleting the original message!

If none of this works, then keep posting here. Or file a Fastmail support request (for a paid account) using the Need help? Start here link at the bottom of any Fastmail web interface screen.

Bill

[Sherry]

[Moderator:]

Thread moved to the "Fastmail.FM Help and Current Issues" Forum.

Welcome to EMD AlvinT

[AlvinT]

Originally Posted by n5bb

It took me a while to make my last post, so I now am viewing your last comments. That is strange. Some comments you made have me wondering about the frequency of this problem.

• Are only a few messages showing up on the phone -- but not the Fastmail web account?
• Or are no new messages now visible on the web account -- but they are all delivered to the phone?
• Look at the delivery addresses for those messages showing up on your smartphone but not the web account. Are the messages causing your confusion being delivered to a different address?
• If your phone service is like mine, there is a direct email address (through the phone company) which delivers email directly to the phone. Those message might not be coming through Fastmail at all.
• Be sure to look at the full headers (if possible) on the smartphone to see how they were delivered. The Fastmail receiving server has "messagingengine.com" in the name.

If that isn't the problem, here is what I suggest to check this out:

• Temporarily turn off the phone completely.
• Log into your Fastmail account through a browser.
• Send yourself a test message (to the same address you saw on the smartphone which seemed to disappear).
• This new test message should immediately be visible in the Inbox your web account after you click the refresh button. I'm assuming you don't have any rules which move or block this message.
  • If the test message is delivered properly:
    • Wait a few minutes and click refresh again and make sure it stays there for a while.
    • If it remains in your Inbox, then power up your smartphone and initiate a POP retrieval, and see if this is removing the message from the Inbox as viewed from the website. Remember to use the refresh button to update the website display.
    • If it disappears after delivery but your smartphone is off, then some other email client (probably using POP) is removing the messages. In the Fastmail web interface, look at the Options>Login Log. This shows the time, IP address, and other details about all devices accessing your Fastmail email account.
  • If the test message is not delivered, then some additional troubleshooting is required.
    • Are you sending the test message to your main account email address (used for the login name) or to an alias or a Virtual Domain alias?
    • If you are using an alias, then look at the Options>Aliases (or Virtual Domains) screen and check the Target set for that alias. You can have multiple targets (separated with a comma). But if you don't have your main Fastmail (login) email address entered, messages to that alias will not be delivered to your Fastmail account.
    • If a bad alias target isn't the problem, then check your Options>Rules screens. You may have a rule which is forwarding the emails to another account read by the smartphone and deleting the original message!

If none of this works, then keep posting here. Or file a Fastmail support request (for a paid account) using the Need help? Start here link at the bottom of any Fastmail web interface screen.

Bill

OK I went through all this and couldnt duplicate it (my android mail client doesnt show full headers, which is a shame )... so I bit the bullet and after MANY years changed my mac mail application to IMAP

I thought it all worked fine but now my mail doesn't show in my inbox (I changed to IMAP on my android phone as well)

So which of you is going to be first to point out the dumb thing I'm doing? by the way the mail client shows 6 unread messages bit the window is empty

Thanks in advance

Al

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by AlvinT

OK I went through all this and couldnt duplicate it (my android mail client doesnt show full headers, which is a shame )... so I bit the bullet and after MANY years changed my mac mail application to IMAP

I thought it all worked fine but now my mail doesn't show in my inbox (I changed to IMAP on my android phone as well)

So which of you is going to be first to point out the dumb thing I'm doing? by the way the mail client shows 6 unread messages bit the window is empty....

Al, you first need to get one client working at a time. You should be sure that you have followed the setup instructions in the Fastmail help for your Mac. There are many here (but not me) who can help with the Mac setup. And look around here for Android IMAP instructions -- I don't have one, so can't personally help with that, since it's not in the Fastmail remote email setup help.

• Be sure you have subscribed to the Fastmail folders you care about (in the Mac client).
• Be sure you don't have trouble with the INBOX or INBOX. (with a period) IMAP root folder prefix.
• If you look at your account in the Fastmail web interface, be sure you don't have subfolders of Inbox. These cause difficulties with some clients.
• To test things, send yourself test messages (to your own Fastmail address) in your email client. Assuming you don't have any rules which affect them (or alias target setup problems at Fastmail), these test messages should show up in your Inbox immediately. Depending on the client, you might need to refresh the display to see new messages. This is how the Fastmail web interface currently works, requiring use of the Refresh button.

Bill

[Pfolson]

I almost hesitate to jump in and give you one more thing to deal with/worry about at this point, because Bill is right: get one client working at a time.

But ... at some point down the road, you may want to consider switching the mail client on your phone from the stock application to something like K9 or Maildroid. This is especially true if you're going to be using IMAP. Personally, I'd recommend K9, which is an awfully powerful little e-mail client, but both are nice and both are much better than the stock app.

Once you get to the point of making the switch, if you have any questions, feel free to start a new thread. Either I or one of the many other Android users here should be able to help.

Paul

[AlvinT]

Originally Posted by n5bb

Al, you first need to get one client working at a time. You should be sure that you have followed the setup instructions in the Fastmail help for your Mac. There are many here (but not me) who can help with the Mac setup. And look around here for Android IMAP instructions -- I don't have one, so can't personally help with that, since it's not in the Fastmail remote email setup help.

• Be sure you have subscribed to the Fastmail folders you care about (in the Mac client).
• Be sure you don't have trouble with the INBOX or INBOX. (with a period) IMAP root folder prefix.
• If you look at your account in the Fastmail web interface, be sure you don't have subfolders of Inbox. These cause difficulties with some clients.
• To test things, send yourself test messages (to your own Fastmail address) in your email client. Assuming you don't have any rules which affect them (or alias target setup problems at Fastmail), these test messages should show up in your Inbox immediately. Depending on the client, you might need to refresh the display to see new messages. This is how the Fastmail web interface currently works, requiring use of the Refresh button.

Bill

Thanks Bill ... but the fact is my phoneapp (android mail) has IMAP installed and it is working fine!

The issue is with the Mac mail app...and now that seems to be working, sometimes, although the fastmail inbox seems slow to load. We'll see how that goes.

[AlvinT]

Originally Posted by Pfolson

I almost hesitate to jump in and give you one more thing to deal with/worry about at this point, because Bill is right: get one client working at a time.

But ... at some point down the road, you may want to consider switching the mail client on your phone from the stock application to something like K9 or Maildroid. This is especially true if you're going to be using IMAP. Personally, I'd recommend K9, which is an awfully powerful little e-mail client, but both are nice and both are much better than the stock app.

Once you get to the point of making the switch, if you have any questions, feel free to start a new thread. Either I or one of the many other Android users here should be able to help.

Paul

Thanks Paul! I actually tried K9 and have it on my phone (for my AOL account). .... it does have some nice features. I'll look at maildroid as well.