Help E-mail Craziness - Must We Use 3rd-party Clients?

[thethreelaws]

RESOLVED: LINK






Original Post:
OK....so....I'm an IT professional.....not just an upper manager that's out of touch with technology, but an IT guy that works with this stuff on a daily basis (and who has been for well over a decade). <--- OMG....now that we know what really happened here, I'm so embarrassed.

I know computers, servers and TCP/IP networking. I know e-mail systems. I know PDAs, smart phones, etc.

What I don't know is WTF is going on with the e-mail configuration in this Android phone, the Motorola Droid Bionic.

I tried, many, many times, to configure a connection to one of my personal e-mail accounts (using IMAP) with the built-in e-mail utility, but it never worked. I tried all kinds of different combinations of the settings, and it would never connect.

Then, a fellow IT guy at work suggested trying K9, a third party e-mail client. After installing it and configuring the settings for this same e-mail account, it worked just fine. I was able to send and receive e-mail from/to that account, etc.

Also, I attempted, over and over again, to configure a connection to my work e-mail account that's on an Exchange server. Same deal.....many, many tries with every possible configuration combination (including passing it around to others to see if they could do it).

On this one, even when I tried with K9, it still didn't work.

Oh....sorry....one bit of change there....when I gave it to another IT guy at work, and he tried to connect to his own account on the same Exchange server, it connected just fine.

Then, he handed me his iPhone so that I could attempt to connect to my Exchange account on there, and it didn't work there either.

Now, this Exchange account issue may just be clouding the whole problem, because it's possible there is a problem with my account at work.

However, we verified that my account works in every other way, and is not locked out or anything like that.

I guess I'm including this issue just in case anyone else has ever experienced anything like this. Like....is there some setting in the Exchange server's configuration that can be set to allow or deny a user/group from accessing the Exchange server via ActiveSync or anything like that? The reason I ask that is because I can get into my Exchange account in every other way....Outlook, OWA, etc.


Anyway, what about this whole IMAP craziness?

Oh, on that....I even created a very simple e-mail account on my domain with an extremely easy password (so that I didn't have to worry about it being the problem in the configuration). I tested it and verified that I could configure a connection to it with Outlook and other clients, but then when I tried with the built-in e-mail utility, it, like the other one, would not connect.

What's up with that?

Is this a common problem, and is everyone else using third-party apps for e-mail too, or is there a fix for this?

Thanks.


p.s. Of course, when I used the gmail tool, it worked just fine to connect to my gmail account, and I was able to log into the Android Market with no problems at all. I don't know if that means anything or not, but it's a bit suspicious in my mind.

 

[PromptCritical]

Similar issues here.

On my OG Droid, I used the mail app included with Smoked Glass and it worked great.

Set up the default email client to my school email. It worked. Sort of.

When I got an email, half the time it simply was blank with attachments I couldn't open. The school email is kinda weird in that it included an attachment with every email. So I got those, but no message. Annoying.

I DL'ed K9 and to my surprise it is exactly the same app that was in Smoked Glass. Good stuff.

 

[manderle]

For Exchange email I use Touchdown from Nitrodesk mainly because our email is secured and issues certificates which Touchdown handled. The app is damn expensive for a phone app ($20) but is absolutely rock solid. Handles everything that outlook does - email (in html even), calendar, tasks, contacts, and even notifies for appointments/meetings. I've been using it for 2 years and wouldn't replace it for anything. Try the 30day version.

 

[thethreelaws]

Here's the message I sent to my fellow IT guys that helped me troubleshoot this thing yesterday.
I figured you guys deserve the truth as well...


______________________________
______________________________
Hi, Guys.
Regarding the struggle with trying to get my Exchange account configured on my new Android (the Motorola Droid Bionic) yesterday...

I'm only crawling out from under the rock long enough to say this......um....I was indeed typing my password incorrectly.
Geez....I've always hated typing on these tiny keypads and screens, and this is EXACTLY why. It's just not the same as on the big computer keyboard.

I guess that funky thing where it was automatically adding in a character (by the way, I started a thread on the android forums about that glitch) didn't help much, and I could give that distraction some credit for spooking my brain, but in all reality, I simply forgot about a shift at a critical point....for the last two characters.

Once I recalled that, I tried it again, and it worked just fine (the built-in tool).

Going back under rock now...

steven

p.s. Thanks much to those that helped troubleshoot that thing, and I'm sorry that you wasted your time while you really should have been troubleshooting me (or just shooting me).

 

[Thom]

Google "droid stylus" and get one. Give it a try. I think you will find the typing problems will almost go away.

(The only thin these "soft tipped" styli don't do well is handle the hardware keys on the Droid X.)

... Thom

 

[thethreelaws]

Google "droid stylus" and get one. Give it a try. I think you will find the typing problems will almost go away.

(The only thin these "soft tipped" styli don't do well is handle the hardware keys on the Droid X.)

... Thom

Thanks. I might try that.

I also now have MyPhoneExplorer on my Bionic and on my regular Windows computer, and can use its remote display/control feature to make sure I'm typing in correctly with the regular keyboard......I mean, not that I will use that all the time, cause that's ridiculous, but whenever I need to set up a new account on the Bionic or something, this will make it easier (OK....maybe not easier, but you know).