Blank screen with FM on iPadOS & iOS

[camner]

For quite a while now, I have seen the following behavior on the iPadOS and iOS Fastmail apps: I will tap the FM app to open it, and it only displays a blank screen. The ?fix? is always the same: ?flick off? (quit) the app and reopen. Then it always works, until some future time after I?ve used the iPad or iPhone for something else and return to FM. This doesn?t happen consistently, but often enough to be an annoyance.

Have others experienced this, and if so, is there any way to address it? (This has happened to me for several versions of iPadOS/iOS?right now I?m on 17.6.1)

[xyzzy]

Have you tried the "classic pull the plug"? In other words reboot.

If that doesn't work you could also try deleting and reinstalling the FM app but then you would need to redo all the app settings you may have changed and other related system settings (notifications, background app refresh, etc. if you changed any of those for the app).

Update:
Are you really still using 17.6.1 or is that just a typo? The last 17 update was 17.7.1 (which is what I use on my iPhone 13 Pro -- still holding off going to 18.x). This has nothing to do with your problem IMO but I just thought I'd ask?

[n5bb]

I?m not seeing this issue ? unless it is very unlikely and I reopen the app just as I do other apps which misbehave. Of course, this may be the result of memory issues, internet access issues, and operating system instability. I?m using an iPhone with iOS 18.1 and older iPad Pro with iPadOS 17.7.1 (can?t be updated to 18). I?m using the FM iOS/iPadOS app version 4.0.12.2626 in beta mode on both devices.

On my iPad I just tried switching between each of the 17 apps which happen to be running right now, and when I came back to Fastmail it was immediately working. I also tried switching to the desktop and what I guess is standby mode (pushing power switch momentarily). I also tried loading and using a few large apps. Every time I went back to the Fastmail app (by using the pinned shortcut at the bottom of the desktop or by choosing among the running apps using the chooser) the Fastmail app immediately came up properly.

I also recommend restarting your device. It?s possible that some app (Fastmail or another one) is hogging you available memory or there is some corruption issue. Also, are you keeping all of your apps up to date? A bug in the Fastmail or another app might be causing this issue. I recommend keeping automatic app updates enabled. I personally like to manually force an update of all needed apps every day or two.

In particular, be sure that the Fastmail app is up to date - as I said, the latest update is 4.0.12.xxxx. The update notes say:

- Improved caching of some assets
- Added icon variants for IOS 18 (light/dark/tinted)
- Updated links to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
- Fixed our share extension on iOS 18 for users who received the 4.0.11 update

My guess is that the first and last of these updates (caching and share extension) might be related to issues such as what you reported.

Bill

[n5bb]

On an unrelated topic which is showing up in this thread - I have noticed for a few months that apostrophes and quotes (and a few other special characters) typically don?t property render after my initial post. The character which isn?t rendered correctly is replaced with a ? (Question mark) character.

I note this issue in the initial post in this thread from camner and in my initial post. Do others see the ? characters and do you also find that your posts are so corrupted? This did not happen in the past (such as last year) and I?m not sure if it is related to the browser I?m using or whether I use the basic or advanced editing window.

I hope that a moderator will look into this issue. I?m posting about this in this thread because the issue is showing up on two of the three posters. I don?t see the issue on the post by xyzzy - did you edit your initial post to correct the ? issue? I find that I can usually edit my original post and fix these.

Bill

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by n5bb

I note this issue in the initial post in this thread from camner and in my initial post. Do others see the ? characters and do you also find that your posts are so corrupted? This did not happen in the past (such as last year) and I?m not sure if it is related to the browser I?m using or whether I use the basic or advanced editing window.l

Yes, I do. Since a couple of weeks now. Saw it with Jeffpan too.

[dsemf]

Originally Posted by Berenburger

Yes, I do. Since a couple of weeks now. Saw it with Jeffpan too.

The ? marks where other characters are expected represent those characters that cannot be displayed. This web site uses ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1).

For example, Unicode characters outside of the ISO-8859-1 character set end up with a ?. I suspect "fancy quotes" are involved.

DS

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by dsemf

The ? marks where other characters are expected represent those characters that cannot be displayed. This web site uses ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1).

For example, Unicode characters outside of the ISO-8859-1 character set end up with a ?. I suspect "fancy quotes" are involved.

DS

Thanks for your post! I determined that my iPad Bluetooth hardware keyboard is not generating Latin-1 for certain punctuation characters. The on-screen keyboard generates Latin-1. I?m not sure, but this might be related to changes in iPadOS17:
Bluetooth Keyboards are a disaster in iPadOS 17
This might also be dependent on the EMD editor choice. I was using the Enhanced editor. Now I think I have it set to ?Standard?. We will see if this fixes the problem. Test: ? ? [ ]

[n5bb]

That didn?t work. Now I?m using the ?Standard? editor (no capability for HTML links or color selection, etc.).

This is an edit - I think it will allow me to use the ‘ “ characters.

Result: It appers that no matter which EMD editor I pick, a post won’t allow my hardware keyboard ‘ or “ characters to be properly encoded. But if I edit the post, the editor it used by default (which includes limited formatting - it might be the Standard editor - allows these characters to be properly encoded. Weird!

Bill

[camner]

Thanks, all, for your replies. Yes, I?m on 17.6.1. Haven?t been able to update to 17.7.1?the ?checking for updates? gear just keeps spinning away and never stops.

I?m running FM 4.0.12.

Yes, I?ve tried rebooting, to no avail. This issue happens on 2 iPhones (14 Pro & SE 2nd gen) and 2 iPads (9th gen)

[xyzzy]

Originally Posted by n5bb

I hope that a moderator will look into this issue. I?m posting about this in this thread because the issue is showing up on two of the three posters. I don?t see the issue on the post by xyzzy - did you edit your initial post to correct the ? issue? I find that I can usually edit my original post and fix these.

I didn't edit anything.

For some tests here are some words I am seeing in this thread correctly entered with quotes:

I'm (single quote)
'fix' (single quotes around the word)
"xyz" (double quote around the word)

I'll see what I get and update this post after I submit it (and, heh, see what the first word of this last paragraph looks like too. Before submitting this the preview displays correctly as I entered it.

---

After submitting it it looks ok to me too.

[n5bb]

After additional testing, here is what I have discovered about the ? issue here at EMD:

• When I use my laptop PC (with integrated keyboard), there is no issue.
• When I use my iPad with the on-screen keyboard, there is no issue.
• When I use my iPad with a Bluetooth hardware keyboard, certain punctuation characters including ' and " (apostrophe and quote) look OK as I'm typing them into the EMD editing screen. But after I click Submit Reply the actual post has a ? character replacing every ' and " character.
• I don't know if this issue is related to an iPadOS issue, my particular Bluetooth keyboard, or an EMD "bug". But it only affects my initial posts in EMD, and I haven't seen any problems with any other website or app on my iPad. I haven't tested this with my iPhone yet.
• If I then edit that post I just submitted, I can use my Bluetooth hardware keyboard to fix the post, and the ' and " characters are then accepted and show correctly after submission. That's strange! It doesn't seem to matter which editing mode (basic, standard, or advanced) I choose in the User CP > Options screen.

Bill

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by n5bb

After additional testing, here is what I have discovered about the ? issue here at EMD:

Better starting a new topic.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by Berenburger

Better starting a new topic.

Oh, you already did.