Droid spontaenously wipes e-mail configuration

[lhfarm]

Thanks Barry...do you think a rouge app is causing the issue?

I have had my Droid from day one (Thanksgiving 09) with no issue. This new Droid is 3 weeks old and is causing me more grief than if it were my own.

It appears to be random, but we know it isn't. I have had my Droid since the first week and the problem started within the first few days. When it happened the second time, I tried changing all the settings and didn't use any special apps. It would still drop everything, sometimes multiple times in the same day. I added a bunch of apps - why I got the Droid - because I think it is something in the native app. It has probably been 3 weeks since I lost everything. There is confort in knowing it comes right back when I reenter the settings, but the problem comes in when I don't know it has stopped receiving messages.

I work for a large university and our tech support is all about the iPhone and don't have an interest (they say they don't have enough Droids on campus) in helping solve the problem. Wish I had better news.
Barry

 

[xchief6]

I strongly recommend that you and your boss acqure the Touchdown Exchange application.

A) It's unaffected when the Droid decides to dump all your email accounts
B) It has an email signature capability, which the Motorola system does not have.

It's assame that you have to spend the extra $20, but I think you will be please. By the way, the Touchdown signature supports HTML. My mobile email signature line now looks identical to my workstation signature ... colors, fonts, the works.

 

[Dawgs]

I strongly recommend that you and your boss acqure the Touchdown Exchange application.

A) It's unaffected when the Droid decides to dump all your email accounts
B) It has an email signature capability, which the Motorola system does not have.

It's assame that you have to spend the extra $20, but I think you will be please. By the way, the Touchdown signature supports HTML. My mobile email signature line now looks identical to my workstation signature ... colors, fonts, the works.

Thanks..I downloaded the Touchdown trial. It was not exactly forthcoming on how to set up the account. It also crashes when I go to Profile/add profiles. Which, I assume is where I should go to set up the account.

 

[xchief6]

I now see the profile setting, but I can't remember if that's where I actually set up the account. On the main screen, there is a 'Gear' on the left side which will take you into settings (though the profile setup should do the same). There are some features deactivated in the Trial Version. The signature, for example can not be edited until the full license is purchased. Profile management may be locked out as well. Good luck.

 

[xchief6]

Just happened again. It's 4:15pm Eastern; I have no idea when it dumped

Services running:

- Android Keyboard
- BluetoothOppSerivce
- BluetoothPbapService
- ExchangeListenerSvc (Touchdown)
- ActiveSyncListenerSvc (Touchdown)
- UpdateService (BBC News)
- DroidInService
- ACCUWX_Widget$Upd...
- UpdateService (Digital Clock)
- RingGuardService

Installed Gmote earlier, but never turned it on.
Attached via USB to PC earlier in the day

 

[kjrnec]

I think this is an known bug with the Droid although its never happened to my phone. But 3 or 4 different users at my company with Droids had their Exchange email just disappear from the phone. It acted as if the email was never setup to sync with the phone before.

I have the same exact setup as them and my phone has never lost its email account settings once. But this is my second droid because I returned the first one for wifi problems. Luckily this was soon after launch and I got an brand new droid as an replacement. If you ask for an replacement phone now you'll probably end up with an refurb from Verizon that will have the same problem.

If you haven't yet I would go ahead and root the phone and see if one of the ROMS works better with email syncing.

 

[nick dickitt]

This has been an ongoing issue with my phone. Atleast once a week it leaves me hanging. Yesterday it dumped my settings twice within a hour. Not hard to setup the accounts again however its just frustrating.:icon_ devil:

 

[kcav8or]

I have five email accounts. Twice I have lost all my email and settings. And several times the phone has stopped syncing email. This problem resolves when I power-cycle the phone. I'm calling Motorola tomorrow.

 

[R1Lover]

We have a bunch of droids at work, none of them with any apps.... they have all one by one wiped the e-mail config..... again they are bone stock phones for business..... so you can count out any other app causing this.

 

[R1Lover]

all there going to tell you is wait for the update and try it then lol

 

[dmproske]

I don't use exchange email, just a standard pop3 account. So far I have not lost my email. However I have lost all my SMS and mms messages twice in the last month and a half. The last time I noted that my phone had randomally rebooted. After it booted up I checked my messages and all text and mms were gone.

 

[kcav8or]

Here is what Motorola Level 1 Support told me. In a nutshell, they suggested using Gmail's Mail Fetcher, or resetting the phone to factory settings.

Gabriela A: Hi, my name is Gabriela A. How may I help you?

Ken Hammond: I have a Droid that keeps losing all of my email and settings.

Gabriela A: I am sorry to hear about that problem.

Ken Hammond: i see from the support forums that this is a common problem.

Gabriela A: Is this problem happening on a Gmail account or a Corporate account?

Ken Hammond: I have five personal POP3 accounts.

Gabriela A: Have you tried removing the battery for 5-10 seconds and then power the phone back on?

Ken Hammond: I have not, but it was also not syncing with the email servers. To resolve this I did a full power-down and power-up. But I did not remove the battery.

Gabriela A: Ok. One moment, please.

Gabriela A: You can try using the Gmail's mail fetcher, Gmail's Mail Fetcher can download messages from up to five other email accounts, centralizing all your email in Gmail.

Gabriela A: If you want, I can send you an e-mail with all the instructions on how to setup Gmail's Mail Fetcher on your Droid.

Ken Hammond: Is that set up in Gmail? I'd prefer not to have copies of all my messages on the Gmail server, but if that is the only option...

Gabriela A: You can try with that. Another option will be to reset the phone back to default.

Gabriela A: Factory Data Reset is a tool used to remove everything that was imported, added or installed on the device.
WARNING: When using this feature; everything is deleted.

Nothing stored on the MicroSD will be affected.

To Perform a Reset

1. Open the Applications Tray. (arrow pointing up located in the middle at the bottom of the display screen)
2. Touch Settings
3. Touch Privacy
4. Touch Factory data reset
5. Touch Reset Phone
6. Touch Erase Everything

Ken Hammond: That would erase all installed apps and settings, correct? What would prevent it from happening again?

Gabriela A: Actually, we cannot guarantee that. But by resetting the phone, the memory is also refreshed.

Ken Hammond: I would be willing to do that once if it would resolve the problem, but installing everything again is no fun.

Gabriela A: I understand that, sir. We apologize for the inconvenience, but these are the troubleshooting steps.

Ken Hammond: Is support working on this problem? If so, when is a fix expected?

Gabriela A: We do not have any reported issue about this problem, sir. If you prefer, I can escalate this issue to our Level 2 who will contact you as soon as possible with all the information you may need. Is that right for you?

Ken Hammond: Yes, let's escalate. This is a very common and serious problem, as you can see here:

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/tech-issues-bug-reports-suggestions/6645-droid-spontaenously-wipes-e-mail-configuration-8.html

Gabriela A: Ok. I will forward this information to our Level 2 support team. They will contact you as soon as possible.

Ken Hammond: Thank you.

Gabriela A: You're welcome. If you need any more information get in touch. Thanks from Motorola, bye!

 

[loboblanco]

Get touchdown

If you use exchange, get Touchdown for Android 2.0. Even without this bug of erasing email, Touchdown is completely worth $20. It gives me all of the same functions I was used to in my old job where they had a Blackberry Enterprise Server. With Touchdown on the Droid, you can now see all of your folders, your sent mail, your trash, but most importantly it accesses your Global Address List so you can access every contact in your company's list! It also has a good, customizable interface and I like that it shows your unread email first without having to open the whole mailbox. It also has a really cool feature of reading the name of who is sending you an email instead of just making a sound. I didn't think I would like that, but now it's the only way I use it since I don't have to look at my phone or open it only to discover it's not an email I'm interested in right now.
P.S, I also replaced the native SMS with Handcent (free) It does some things that the standard Droid text doesn't do and it looks pretty cool.

I know some people are saying they shouldn't have to pay $20. I agreed at first, thinking why doesn't it have great exchange email out of the box, but every phone and interface is different and the reality is that the biggest advantage to a Droid or Iphone is all of the apps that you can find to give you everything that you need or want. $20 one time is no big deal on a smart phone that costs what it does each month and it makes the Droid an excellent Exchange phone.

 

[R0B0Droid]

Yes, this is a real pain. Picked up 2x a855 units for testing to see if they are Enterprise worthy, but both have dropped all account info and sync'd mail multiple times.

I've scoured lots of forums for a fix and it seems like paying the extra $20 for touchdown is about the only solution at this time.

We have about 35 Blackberry units in force and I was hoping that the Droid would be a good replacement for a few of our more tech savvy users, but at this point it looks like it will just frustrate them...

 

[zeebrew]

Droid drops Exchange settings

I had this same issue. Droid would regularly wipe my exchange settings - mailbox gone. I would have to reconfigure from scratch. Until next wipe.

I finally got to tech at Verizon who said my data plan needed to be updgraded. I had an unlimited data plan, but I specifically needed "Corporate Smartphone Data Unlimited" plan. Idea being that without this check box checked Verizon (or Droid?) would see Exchange account as unauthorized and drop it. This plan costs about $10-$15 more per month than what I had.

Skeptical at first: problem is that I am not paying Verizon enough money? Also, clearly was not wiping account info every time it synched. Sometimes it worked fine.

But, three weeks after the upgrade I have not lost the setting since. This may actually be the fix. If wipe occurs again, will update this post.

Hope this helps.