Odd problem with email across 3 mac devices..

[sornywrx]

I have a friend who has a 2 year old iMac, an iPhone 4G, and an iPad 2G. He has a Hotmail (yuck) email account that he doesn't want to get rid of. He had it successfully setup in the default Mail program on all 3 devices for quite a while and it always worked fine. Then suddenly, without him making any changes, it started acting funny. The phone ALWAYS receives mail and receives it instantly. The other 2 devices act EXACTLY the same, sometimes receiving mail and sometimes they won't receive it for another day.

You can click on the Check Mail icon on the iPad/iMac and it'll say it's checking mail but claims nothing is there. I thought maybe the iPhone was removing it from the server but it's not. I can turn the iPhone completely off, send him a test message, login to Hotmail (website) and see the message and neither iPad or iMac will download the message -- MOST OF THE TIME. That's another odd part.. sometimes they will get the message instantly on both devices (and of course the phone) but most of the time it is really lagged behind and when he gets a 3rd or 4th email it'll just get them all. The iPhone was on his Verizon 3G cell network and the iPad/iMac were just on his local ISP's DSL wifi. I thought that had to do with it so I disabled cellular data on the phone, added it to wifi, and it still did the same thing.

I don't expect anyone to solve this problem for me. But I have deleted and readded accounts to the devices and they will send and receive, just not always. I'm no Mac person but I have worked in IT for 15 years and know my way around a POP3 account and even manage an Exchange server at work. I'm just wondering if there's some kind of Apple "feature" or configuration I'm missing that would make it check on the phone first and then most of the time, but not always, never download on the other 2 devices? I'm thinking it might be some quirk with hotmail and thought about switching him to Gmail with IMAP setup instead.

 

[MotionMan]

I have a friend who has a 2 year old iMac, an iPhone 4G, and an iPad 2G. He has a Hotmail (yuck) email account that he doesn't want to get rid of. He had it successfully setup in the default Mail program on all 3 devices for quite a while and it always worked fine. Then suddenly, without him making any changes, it started acting funny. The phone ALWAYS receives mail and receives it instantly. The other 2 devices act EXACTLY the same, sometimes receiving mail and sometimes they won't receive it for another day.

You can click on the Check Mail icon on the iPad/iMac and it'll say it's checking mail but claims nothing is there. I thought maybe the iPhone was removing it from the server but it's not. I can turn the iPhone completely off, send him a test message, login to Hotmail (website) and see the message and neither iPad or iMac will download the message -- MOST OF THE TIME. That's another odd part.. sometimes they will get the message instantly on both devices (and of course the phone) but most of the time it is really lagged behind and when he gets a 3rd or 4th email it'll just get them all. The iPhone was on his Verizon 3G cell network and the iPad/iMac were just on his local ISP's DSL wifi. I thought that had to do with it so I disabled cellular data on the phone, added it to wifi, and it still did the same thing.

I don't expect anyone to solve this problem for me. But I have deleted and readded accounts to the devices and they will send and receive, just not always. I'm no Mac person but I have worked in IT for 15 years and know my way around a POP3 account and even manage an Exchange server at work. I'm just wondering if there's some kind of Apple "feature" or configuration I'm missing that would make it check on the phone first and then most of the time, but not always, never download on the other 2 devices? I'm thinking it might be some quirk with hotmail and thought about switching him to Gmail with IMAP setup instead.

I have similar weird problems with one of my backup email accounts on Yahoo, also across three Apple devices (iPhone, MacMini and MacBook). I just think that these free services are just not maintaining everything all the well (especially POP).

There is no magic sauce in Apple products regarding this - I think the problem is on the server end.

MotionMan

 

[sornywrx]

I have similar weird problems with one of my backup email accounts on Yahoo, also across three Apple devices (iPhone, MacMini and MacBook). I just think that these free services are just not maintaining everything all the well (especially POP).

There is no magic sauce in Apple products regarding this - I think the problem is on the server end.

MotionMan

Thank you for responding. I was starting to think I was going crazy. I couldn't find anything magical to do with Apple with this but thought I better ask some Apple guys first. I too was blaming it on the server's end and he said he thinks he first noticed very soon after receiving an email from Hotmail saying he can start using Outlook.com. I know the pop and smtp server settings are still working because he still does get mail sometimes.

He saw that I used gmail and heard me speak highly of it and he was considering setting up a gmail account anyways but was afraid of losing contact with some people. So I thought about setting up his Hotmail as a POP account in gmail so that gmail will still receive it and then just setup his gmail account (via IMAP and not POP3) on his devices.

Again, thanks for letting me know I wasn't just crazy.

 

[MotionMan]

Thank you for responding. I was starting to think I was going crazy. I couldn't find anything magical to do with Apple with this but thought I better ask some Apple guys first. I too was blaming it on the server's end and he said he thinks he first noticed very soon after receiving an email from Hotmail saying he can start using Outlook.com. I know the pop and smtp server settings are still working because he still does get mail sometimes.

He saw that I used gmail and heard me speak highly of it and he was considering setting up a gmail account anyways but was afraid of losing contact with some people. So I thought about setting up his Hotmail as a POP account in gmail so that gmail will still receive it and then just setup his gmail account (via IMAP and not POP3) on his devices.

Again, thanks for letting me know I wasn't just crazy.

I thought I was going crazy with Yahoo when I just decided to give up and deal with it as it comes. Like I said, it is a backup account, so I rarely have to deal with it. I could not imagine using it as my primary account.

I feel your pain regarding trying to get people to switch. I have been trying to get my parents (in their 70's) and my uncle (80's) off of AOL for years. My parents are holding fast. I finally got my uncle off of it, but that is only because he died

Good luck.

MotionMan

 

[sornywrx]

Yup, this guy has been using his hotmail for a long time and doesn't want to switch but at least he's not completely closed minded and is ready to do it.

I know another guy, in his 70's, who has been using Yahoo mail forever and just will not switch but keeps calling me up all the time complaining because they keep putting more and more ads on the screen. Then when he clicks to close the ads (not popups, side bar ads) it says to upgrade to Plus to get rid of ads. He decided to just live with it.

Speaking of AOL I read an article somewhere a few years ago that mentioned how many older people were still subscribed to AOL and that the main reason they're still afloat is because the older people who will die before they change.

 

[MotionMan]

Yup, this guy has been using his hotmail for a long time and doesn't want to switch but at least he's not completely closed minded and is ready to do it.

I know another guy, in his 70's, who has been using Yahoo mail forever and just will not switch but keeps calling me up all the time complaining because they keep putting more and more ads on the screen. Then when he clicks to close the ads (not popups, side bar ads) it says to upgrade to Plus to get rid of ads. He decided to just live with it.

Speaking of AOL I read an article somewhere a few years ago that mentioned how many older people were still subscribed to AOL and that the main reason they're still afloat is because the older people who will die before they change.

Yeah, we are one down, two to go.

MotionMan