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Gmail app receiving emails infrequently

A

Andrew Stephens

Lurker
I'm not exactly sure when it started but I've noticed in the last few weeks that gmail is no longer syncing properly (HTC One M8). I thought gmail used push notifications, but I currently only get mail coming through a couple of times a day. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to the times, although I've noticed on some days it syncs around 4pm, give or take half an hour, but this could just be a coincidence.

As an example, right now if I go into "Accounts & Sync" then tap on "Google", it says "last sync 26/03/2015 11:12". If I tap through to the list of individual services (Google+, Gmail, App Data, Google Play, etc), they all have different dates & times, with Gmail showing a last sync of 16:13 yesterday.

If I log into Gmail via a browser I can see a dozen new emails going back to yesterday evening, which are not on the phone. If I go into Gmail on my phone and manually sync (by dragging downwards) then they arrive. It's that, or wait for the next seemingly random automatic sync.

Any thoughts?
 
Having the various services sync at different times is normal. No problem there. But you should be getting Gmail pushed to you.

Offhand the only reasons I can think of are...
Lack of an internet connection.
Push has been disabled. Can't remember if there's a setting for that in Gmail online.
Somehow your account changed to POP3 service.

This is an odd problem...
 
Nothing has changed on the Gmail side of things - IMAP is enabled, POP3 disabled.

Other things I've tried (that I've seen mentioned elsewhere): "clear cache" and "clear data" on the gmail app, and restarting the phone.
 
If it's started since updating to Lollipop, you may want to consider Helium Backup from the Play Store, factory data reset, and restore the backup.
 
Two places to look. When you go into menu>settings>accounts and tap on your gmail account, scroll all the way to the bottom of the list of sync options. Is there an error there? I get one that says "Sync is currently experiencing problems. Please try again later." or something like that when trying to sync sound search (gmail is working fine).

Also open the gmail app and go to settings and make sure sync is enabled there too.

BTW, it might be helpful to know which version of Android you are using and the version of the gmail app.
 
lunatic59 said:
BTW, it might be helpful to know which version of Android you are using and the version of the gmail app.
Click to expand...

Sorry, yes Android 5.0.1 and Gmail 5.0.1. I've since installed Google Inbox but having the same issue with that (i.e. syncing very infrequently).

It's quite possible that this did start after upgrading to lollipop - I've only really noticed this problem in the last few weeks, but could have been going on for longer (I'm not a profilic email user!).

I've read elsewhere that there have been known problems with the "Google Play Services" app causing Gmail sync problems. Is this an avenue to explore? I don't want to start messing around with system apps if I can help it...
 
Next time it's been a long time since you got mail, go to: Settings > Accounts > Google > select account > look to see if Gmail synced. If there's a little circle of arrows it failed. If so, uncheck/recheck the sync option to manually force a sync and see if it syncs successfully.

Like I said, something odd is happening because even if mail is not syncing properly you should still get push notifications.
 
Looks like I've got it working again. From what I remember, here are the steps I went through:-

I had tried the usual suggestions (clear data, cache, restart phone, turn sync off/on, etc), but none of them helped. I then installed Google Inbox to see if the issue lay with the Gmail app or the underlying email push/sync mechanism. After installing Inbox I ticked its setting to disable Gmail notifications, which (I believe) just does the same as unticking the "Notifications" checkbox in the Gmail app (under Settings -> account). As a precaution I also went into the phone settings -> Accounts & Sync -> Google, and disabled the sync option specific to Gmail, as Google Inbox now had its own sync entry in this list.

Unfortunately, after all this, I found that Google Inbox had the same problem, i.e. very infrequent email updates.

I then cleared the cache and data of the "Google Play Services" app, which I'd read had caused similar issues a few months ago. After restarting the phone, apart from an initial sync, Google Inbox still wasn't getting new emails pushed to it so I uninstalled it. I then went back into the Gmail app, which displayed a warning that notifications were turned off, so I turned that back on. I also enabled Gmail sync again (I think the Gmail app warned me about that too, or I could have imagined this - memory like a goldfish, sorry!).

Lo and behold things are working again, and emails are coming through to my Gmail app within seconds of them being sent!

I'm not sure what actually fixed it, but hopefully this might help someone else with the same problem...
 
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