Mail App iOS 13

Manfred

Reports on the net read like some people have problems with the mail app, some don’t. That is the reason why I was opening this thread - thought that maybe it is specific to certain ActiveSync implementations (Z-Push in this case). At least in my environment it is happening to all 7 i(Pad)OS devices of different generations having upgraded to iOS 13(.2) and connecting to my Kopano server via Z-Push.

I don’t think it’s related to ActiveSync implementation as sending the read flag is a task of the device.
Are you using the default app on all the devices or also some 3rd party app? Do you have multiple ActiveSync accounts configured on them?

What I am just stumbling upon ist that on receiving the email Z-Push sends <POOMMAIL:Read>1</POOMAIL:Read>, on first reading iPhone sends a 0, on second reading iPhone sends a 1. Shouldn’t the first sending include marking it as unread?

That <POOMMAIL:Read>1</POOMAIL:Read> is for the email in another folder (id U6ff87, I guess it’s Sent Items).

I post the complete log overview (filtered to all lines with the [WBXML] tag) of receiving email, opening it for the first time and the second time - I hope this is not too lengthy for a post here, but just in case you might discover something unexpected.

Reading the email the first time:

Actually the ios devices fetch email even before you read if I remember correctly. It should send the request you’ve posted under “Reading the email the second time” after you open the email.

There’s nothing obviously wrong in the log except that there’s no Sync request from the device. Is it also the same for the emails which you don’t open immediately after receiving?

Manfred

genesis74

Hi @Manfred,

thank you for taking a look at the logs.

I am using the native iOS mail app on all devices. On some devices there are Exchange accounts (native Microsoft Exchange) configured, but all have the same issue with Z-Push synchronization.

Right, the read flag was in another folder, I missed that.

iOS mail fetches a few lines of the email to show it in the email list (number of lines can be configured between none and 5, but one cannot configure mail app to load the whole mail without opening it - so email is only loaded when it is opened). So maybe I shouldn’t have shortened the logs at WBXML IN and OUT - at least it is possible to see if whole emails are transferred or only part of it. But knowing the size of the email I am pretty sure that the loading-on-opening is also reflected by the logs.

I assume your colleague who has upgraded to 13.2 with his iPhone is synchronizing with a Kopano server via Z-Push as well and using the iOS mail app?

Manfred

Hi @genesis74

@genesis74 said in Mail App iOS 13:

iOS mail fetches a few lines of the email to show it in the email list (number of lines can be configured between none and 5, but one cannot configure mail app to load the whole mail without opening it - so email is only loaded when it is opened). So maybe I shouldn’t have shortened the logs at WBXML IN and OUT - at least it is possible to see if whole emails are transferred or only part of it. But knowing the size of the email I am pretty sure that the loading-on-opening is also reflected by the logs.

On the initial sync of an incoming email iOS devices request 500 bytes of plain text:

30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I      <MIMESupport>
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I       0
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I      </MIMESupport>
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I      <AirSyncBase:BodyPreference>
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I       <AirSyncBase:Type>
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I        1
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I       </AirSyncBase:Type>
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I       <AirSyncBase:TruncationSize>
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I        500
30/10/2019 16:47:24 [23133] [WBXML] I       </AirSyncBase:TruncationSize>

Then they do Fetch and request the whole RFC822 message:

30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I      <MIMESupport>
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I       2
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I      </MIMESupport>
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I      <AirSyncBase:BodyPreference>
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I       <AirSyncBase:Type>
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I        4
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I       </AirSyncBase:Type>
30/10/2019 16:48:31 [ 5305] [WBXML] I      </AirSyncBase:BodyPreference>

However the difference between the initial sync and sync with Fetch is more than a minute.
I’ve checked our logs and there’s the difference is only a matter of seconds. The iOS device issues the sync with Fetch right after the initial sync is done, without the user opening an email. That’s what I also observed in the past - iOS does 2 requests to get an email and loads the whole email message, so that all the content is there when you open it.
Maybe one of the configured ActiveSync accounts is not able to connect to the server and is blocking the Fetch? Could you disable the sync for all ActiveSync accounts but the Kopano/Z-Push one and check if the issue stills occurs?

I assume your colleague who has upgraded to 13.2 with his iPhone is synchronizing with a Kopano server via Z-Push as well and using the iOS mail app?

Yes. He also has multiple ActiveSync accounts configured but all of them are Kopano/Z-Push.

Manfred

genesis74

Hi @Manfred,

I invested a few more hours into this. First I followed your suggestions and disabled all other accounts. I also deleted the Kopano/Z-Push account and set it up from scratch. Only activated email. Then - for a short time - mail behaved like expected, later the issue returned. Then I started a widespread trial and error phase touching several parameters on iPhone, Z-Push, apache2 and so on.

In the end the only parameter that seemed to reproduceably influence this issue is the number of emails and folders being synchronized. I had 1800 emails in my inbox, 2500 total in about 10 folders. After all these were synchronized the issue was present. Removing them and resynchronizing leads to normal behaviour in the beginning but issue returning as synchronizing progresses. I then reduced the number of mails in inbox to around 1000 and excluded all folders except inbox from push. At this stage the issue did not return.

Maybe this helps. The question that remains is if this happens with mail app on all ActiveSync accounts with >= 2500 emails synchronized.

Hi,

my primary Inbox contains 1326 items (241,4MB) and 7 sub folders.
I uses 2 Active Sync account, my phone uses iOS 13.2 and I see the same odd behavior.

Walter

Manfred

Hi @genesis74,

The amount of the emails in the inbox might indeed be the issue.

Did you set to sync all emails? Or do you have some limitation (3 days, 7 days)?

Manfred

Manfred,

I sync all items and it worked with iOS 12.

Walter

Manfred

Hi @WalterHof,

@WalterHof said in Mail App iOS 13:

Manfred,

I sync all items and it worked with iOS 12.

Walter

did you have as many items with iOS 12? Did you try syncing less items (e.g. 1 month or 1 week).

Manfred

Manfred,

with iOS 12 I have approximately the same amount of items in my inbox.
Unfortunately I am very short on time, so I can’t dig into this issue.
Btw. other customers, using Novell Groupwise reporting the same odd behavior since updating to iOS 13.x.

Walter

Manfred

Hi @WalterHof,

@WalterHof said in Mail App iOS 13:

Btw. other customers, using Novell Groupwise reporting the same odd behavior since updating to iOS 13.x.

So, it looks like something’s changed in iOS 13. If the device doesn’t send read flag after opening an email, then Z-Push isn’t aware there has been a change.

Manfred

Manfred,

I asked my Exchange customers, unfortunately all Exchange customers do not see this sad behavior.

So I assume, for Groupwise and Z-Push, the Active Sync implementation is no fully compliant to the AS specifications.

Walter

Manfred

Hi @WalterHof,

@WalterHof said in Mail App iOS 13:

Manfred,

I asked my Exchange customers, unfortunately all Exchange customers do not see this sad behavior.

So I assume, for Groupwise and Z-Push, the Active Sync implementation is no fully compliant to the AS specifications.

Walter

Do the exchange customers also have a large (thousands) amount of emails?

Did you try syncing fewer items like I suggested?

In this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250700298?page=1 there are several posts that this issue also occurs with Exchange / Office 365 / Hotmail accounts, so it’s clearly not only Z-Push’s or Groupwise’s fault.

Manfred

Manfred,

my Exchange customers do have similar or even bigger inboxes.
I assume this issue depends also on version on mail system (AS part).

Walter

genesis74

Hi @Manfred,

correct me if I am wrong but isn’t communication between iOS mail app and MS Exchange based on MAPI while we are relying on ActiveSync with Z-Push and Kopano? At least, I see iOS devices having two accounts, one Kopano account (ActiveSync/Z-Push) and one MS Exchange account (which is assumed to be MAPI-based) with only the AS based account showing the issue leading me to the theory that there is a problem with iOS mail app especially handling lots of messages via ActiveSync - but not via MAPI. Which would have made it basically possible that it is a Z-Push related problem, but it seems to be much more widespread - and as far as I understood what you wrote there is not any misbehaviour of Z-Push noticeable in the logs.

Manfred

Hi @genesis74,

@genesis74 said in Mail App iOS 13:

Hi @Manfred,

correct me if I am wrong but isn’t communication between iOS mail app and MS Exchange based on MAPI while we are relying on ActiveSync with Z-Push and Kopano? At least, I see iOS devices having two accounts, one Kopano account (ActiveSync/Z-Push) and one MS Exchange account (which is assumed to be MAPI-based) with only the AS based account showing the issue leading me to the theory that there is a problem with iOS mail app especially handling lots of messages via ActiveSync - but not via MAPI. Which would have made it basically possible that it is a Z-Push related problem, but it seems to be much more widespread - and as far as I understood what you wrote there is not any misbehaviour of Z-Push noticeable in the logs.

I don’t know how the default iOS mail app connects to an Exchange server, but I’d say it still uses ActiveSync. As far as I know only Outlook uses MAPI over HTTP to connect to Exchange server (maybe also the Outlook for xxx apps that are available for mobiles).

If you (or someone else) are also managing Exchange server, maybe you could check IIS connections and how mobile devices are connecting to an Exchange server.

Manfred

genesis74

Hi @Manfred,

I still could not determine what the difference is between the mentioned accounts (native Exchange vs. Kopano/Z-Push). But last night Apple released iOS/iPadOS 13.2.3. According to feedback I received as well as tests on my own devices the issue seems to be fixed.

Hi,

I updated to iOS 13.2.3, for two days , mail APP worked as expected (like in iOS 12) unfortunately after two days, mail APP do not show new mails but show “nn unread”, same behavior as iOS 13 release.

Walter

Manfred

Hi Walter,

@WalterHof said in Mail App iOS 13:

Hi,

I updated to iOS 13.2.3, for two days , mail APP worked as expected (like in iOS 12) unfortunately after two days, mail APP do not show new mails but show “nn unread”, same behavior as iOS 13 release.

Walter

does it mean that new emails aren’t synced to the device? Or are the new emails synced to the device but do not appear in the app?

Manfred

Manfred,

I can’t tell what happens, I see the count of unread mails, but I do not see the mails itself. Activating the unread filter, seconds later I see the mails.

Walter

Manfred

Hi Walter,

@WalterHof said in Mail App iOS 13:

Manfred,

I can’t tell what happens, I see the count of unread mails, but I do not see the mails itself. Activating the unread filter, seconds later I see the mails.

Walter

that sounds more like the app usability than a Z-Push issue.

Manfred