Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Troubleshoot iOS Mail Problems
The
Fix Mail Problems
chapter contained instructions for solving problems with the Maver-
icks version of Mail. iOS 7 Mail has its own set of problems and solutions, and this final topic
covers some of the most common ones.
Mail Downloading Problems
Certain very specific situations give rise to odd behaviors in which Mail refuses to display
messages that ought to have been downloaded. For example, when a message has just ap-
peared on your iOS device and you tap it during the brief interval between when the headers
have been downloaded and when the rest of the message arrives, Mail gets confused, stops
downloading the rest of the message, and never tries again. I'll mention two variants of this
problem.
Message Has No Content
In the message list, a message's preview may say “This message has no content.” If you ignore
that and tap it anyway, sometimes you'll see the message just fine, but other times the mes-
sage body says only, “This message has not been downloaded from the server.” On the other
hand, sometimes the preview displays just fine but the message is nevertheless blank.
Prior to iOS 7, you could swipe upward to reveal a button that let you download the rest of
the message, but now there's no evident solution. I've found that I can usually get the mes-
sage back by force-quitting Mail and reopening it. To force-quit Mail, double-press the Home
button, and then slide the thumbnail of the Mail screen upward and “off” the screen. Then
press Home again and reopen Mail.
Message Cannot Be Displayed
A related problem, which appears under conditions I haven't been able to nail down, is that
a preview appears correctly in the message list, but when you tap the message to view it, the
message body says, “This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted.
Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program,” followed by the
message's current format, such as “multipart/alternative” or “text/plain.”
Unfortunately, merely force-quitting Mail doesn't bring such messages back. The only solu-
tion I've found is to remove that entire email account from your iOS device (go to Settings >
Mail, Contacts, Calendars >
Account Name
, tap Delete Account, and tap Delete again to con-
firm)—and then add the account again from scratch.
