Android email client flaky?

[Red Squirrel]

Anyone find this client is flaky, or is it just me or something I don't have setup right?

I want to be alerted on my phone for stuff like environmental conditions at my home, server related alarms etc... so I setup a deciated pop account on my online server that is used only for my phone. however, half the time the emails never actually trigger an alert, and I only get them when I open the email client and actually check for mail. I have it set to check every 15 minutes, I set it to 5 just to test. Even if I leave the client open, half the time it wont work.

Why is this? is there perhaps a better way of doing this? I don't want to use gmail since then I'll get alerted for every single email. Even though I don't use that gmail account there's the possible chance of spam, and not to mention all the crap google always sends to it, so I rather stick with a dedicated pop account. Just need a pop client that will actually consistently alert me when mail comes in. I realize having it connect out every nn time will use the battery more, but I'll just have to tweak the setting to something reasonable.

 

[postmortemIA]

is your network (wifi or cellular) set up to be always on?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep always on. Does the same at work too. If I open the client manually it does eventually get the email, though sometimes it just sits at loading forever and I have to try again. If I do it on a computer it's instant. Wifi is a Unify access point so it's fairly high end and reliable.

 

[KentState]

Maybe setup an Outlook.com or Yahoo Mail account and use their app with alerting? Try a third party app like Touchdown? You can also send email to SMS which could alert you.

I do miss some of the email features of BB. Use to be able to setup alerting based on email filters.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I've never had a problem with email on any of my Android devices but I only use Exchange and Gmail accounts not pop.

I have never had any spam on my Gmail account and I use it for everything, it's the most popular email service out there for a reason.

 

[Icecold]

I had similar issues with my Android phone. I started using K-9 mail and haven't had any issues with it so far.

 

[Binky]

What android version? Try uninstalling and reinstalling the stock email client, if possible. On android, using gmail would probably be more battery efficient than a POP account, so you may want to consider integrating that instead.

I have seen this alert issue happen but only on custom roms.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have always found the email client to be a bit iffy, but it could very well be yahoo. It gets stuck sometimes trying to get mail and it wont get itself out of it without a kill and restart. But beyond that its been a bug free experience. I think my problem is more than likely caused by yahoo and not by the client.

 

[blackangst1]

I would suggest using a mail service that supports push. If you dont want to use gmail, use outlook.com and set it up as an exchange account on your phone.

 

[s44]

What device and ROM?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Nexus 4, using Android version 4.2.2. I rather use my own server and not have to rely on an external service. At worse I might write a push app, but I rather just use pop since it's a standard. In the future I may get a different phone when this one breaks or what not so I don't want to tie myself to something specific to this phone/company. TBH if I could I'd rather everything else use my own server such as contact syncing, but some stuff I don't really have control over. I'll search for K-9 and use that to see if it fixes the issue.

 

[vshah]

you can create a gmail filter to assign those important emails to a label. the gmail client on android can set up notifications per label. enable them only for your new label.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmm that could work too I guess, since all of them have the title starting with *ALARM* so it would be easy to setup. Just setup the K-9 client so I'll try that first and see how that goes and see if it's not too bad for the battery. I imagine a simple check does not use much resources and this account wont see lot of mail unless my basement starts to flood or something like that, or one of my more important servers goes down.

 

[rednas]

I always had issues with the included app. I now use k-9 mail and have not had an issue since. I think the issues arise because I do not use gmail for any of my email accounts.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Gmail + Lightflow for LED lights blinking for specific labels = win

 

[Red Squirrel]

K9 seems to be working well so far. I just ran a test, switched off the power to my server rack, and within 5 minutes I got a notification sound and little notice box at top. Going to wait for the low voltage alarm to come through. Of course I can just manually send an email but I like to use a real life situation. Any email I do send does pop up within the 5 minute check period. So far it's not using much battery either. I'm at 98% since this morning.