RAZR DROID Problem adding Gmail Accounts

[arthurW]

I previously had the first Droid-Motorola and had no problems adding multiple gmail addresses/accounts to the Gmail Email reader. I obtained my Android RAZR (Verizon) yesterday and went through the setup. Everything went fine except trying to setup the Verizon Backup Assistant- I obtained a screen message that this failed. However, I was able to later try again and it worked just fine. OK, so next I set up my Gmail email accounts. I have three existing Gmail email accounts (lets call them gmail1, gmail2, gmail3). Setting up the first two on the phone went fine. And when I then clicked on the Gmail mail icon ->settings -> Accounts... it listed both Gmail accounts. So far so good. However, I next tried adding the third Gmail account. It accepted all my information, but when it was done it didn't add the gmail3 account to the accounts in the phones Gmail. It added it to the phones "Email" (the icon looks like an envelope containing a letter (just coming out of the envelope) with a red background with a white "@". If I open this "Email" account, and touch the envelope/"@" icon it lists the actual email addresses being served, and sure enough my gmail3 is listed. When I go to the phones Gmail icon and list the accounts, only gmail1 and gmail2 are listed. For good measure, I created a new gmail4 account on my laptop, and then on my RAZR went through the process of adding this gmail4 account "Add account". And once again it didn't add it to the Gmail email reader, it added it to the phones "Email" email reader.

So I have two questions/needs here:

(1) I don't even use the phones "Email" mail reader. I like to use K-9 Mail. So I would like to remove/delete the gmail3 and gmail4 from the phone's "Email" account. However, I can not find a way to do this in my RAZR.

(2) I would like to be able to add my gmail3 email account to the phones Gmail email reader. With my old first Droid-Motorolla phone, I was able to do this without any trouble. Is this a bug? Has anyone else had this problem?

ps- I otherwise LOVE the phone

thanks,
ART

 

[NoBloatware]

Hi, I don't have the phone but here are a couple thoughts:

- in the email app's account list can you not long press one of the gmail accounts and remove it?
- I like K9 too so I have it check my gmail accounts instead of using the gmail app. This way you don't have to add all of your accounts to the phone's account system and you have all of your email in one app.

 

[arthurW]

@Bloatware

I had tried such an approach at various places while in the "Email" program. However, I just figured out how to delete the intended-gmail accounts that the Droid's "Email" program 'took'.
Settings --> Accounts
Here it lists "My Accounts" which seems to include the Phone (backup assistant), and each of the email accounts (gmail1, gmail2, gmail3, and gmail4 for me). If you then select one of these accounts, the next window that opens has a 'remove account' tab. Clicking it removes that email account.

So that solves half of my problem. I would still like to have gmail3 to exist along with my other gmail1 and gmail2 accounts under the Droid's "Gmail" email reader. I would rather not have all of them under K-9 because I am going to use K-9 for my work email address, and I like to keep that totally separate from the Gmail accounts.

I am also going to note a NEW problem (though I will also post this under a separate thread). When I click on Settings and then Accounts, almost every time I get a warning message: "The process com.motorola.service.main has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again." There is a "Force Close" tab that I then have to hit. The screen then usually defaults back to the home screen, though occasionally it stays in the Accounts window (when it stayed, I was then able to see the "remove account" tab etc.

-Art

 

[arthurW]

Resolved: Gmail and also com.motorola.service.main has stopped unexpectedly

I previously had the problem that when I tried to add a 3rd Gmail acount it would add it to the general Droid "Email" application. Also, I was getting the warning message -> com.motorola.service.main has stopped unexpectedly.

Gmail/Email More information:
I had figured out how to deleted the 3rd Gmail account (in Email)- see previous post. However, I have since realized that even though the 3rd Gmail account was no longer listed under "My Accounts", if I opened the Droid's "Email" application, the 3rd gmail was still listed as the default email address. So when i went to add the 3rd gmail account back in, the Droid would tell me that it already existed. I could not find a way to remove this email address fully from the Droid's Mail app.

com.motorola.service.main More information:
I previously indicated that when I went into "Setting"s and then "Accounts", I would almost always get that error message and a Force Close tab. I have since realized, however, that I would also occasionally get that error message when I had the Droid's "Mail" application open. I never received that error message any other time (than in Mail or in My Accounts).

Resolution of both issues:
I don't believe so much in bad phones as I do in bad configurations Think of a PC where the registry has gotten so tangled/corrupted that wiping the machine is the best option. So after trying to resolve these two above issues by working within my setup, I decided to return the phone to the original factory settings. Settings -> Privacy -> Factory Data Reset. This of course wipes everything off the phone. When the phone was in the process of rebuilding, I decided NOT to go with any form of the Motorola's Backup Assistant. I then proceeded to enter in my Gmail accounts. With the original phone/ first time through I had indicated a Gmail account, but had clicked on the Droid's "EMail Accounts" icon in the Set Up Accounts window. This time I thought about it more and realized (duh) that Gmail is a Google type of account. So this time I clicked on the 'Google" icon in the Set Up Accounts window. I did this for Gmai1, Gmail2, and Gmail3 accounts without any problem. And all three Gmail accounts got entered under the Droids Gmail application (so when I click on the Gmail app, and list the accounts, it shows all three Gmail addresses as I wanted. I next downloaded the K9 email app (which I highly rec over the Droid's Email app). I next added my work email address to the K9 application. I NEVER opened or used the Droid's "Email" application. My phone now works flawlessly, and no more com.motorola.service.main error/shut down messages. Boy this phone is fast/nice!

I don't know, however, which change resolved the problems. Was it my avoiding the Motorola's Backup Assistant, or was it using the "Google" application to set up my Gmail (and not using the droid Email app to set up the Gmail). I suspect that the problem had more to do with avoiding the Droid's "Email" application (since I would get the error while in the Droid's Email app).

So my phone hardware was good, its internal configuration, however, was the problem. I would suggest, if you are having problems with your new phone to go ahead and do the factory reset and try the setup again. The reset takes ~5 minutes, setting up your email another 5-15 minutes. Less time than trying to call or bringing your phone to your carrier.

Also, for those new to smart phones, use the Android Market and download the free Advanced Task Killer application. You can open it a couple of times a day and kill everything that is running in the background. Unfortunately these Android phones come with a lot of software permanently installed. Many of these apps just start up on their own in the background (eg, right now VZ Navigator, Smart Actions, My Verizon Mobile, some NFL app, Alarm and Timer, Guided Tours and News are all running and I didn't intentionally start any of these apps) and you can use this Task Killer to stop them.

cheers,
ART