Googlemail Warning - UK Users

[geemacd]

I havent read about this issue in this section of the forum, so I though I would warn people

If you change from google mail to gmail address as google are asking you to do, this will balls up your phone, the syncing of it and downloading of apps.

Took me a while to fix this but you need to switch off your phone then go back into Gmail, clicked settings and under Accounts set my email back to googlemail then restarted my HTC Desire.

Took a few attempts of repeating this while signing out etc for this to work, but eventually got there.

Thought folks should be aware to stay away until google fixes this HUGGGEE mistake imo.

 

[JasonC]

I switched a couple of weeks ago to gmail and I've had no problems at all with my phone.

 

[mr.hachi]

I've always used @gmail even way back when it was started and never had a problem.

 

[geemacd]

I switched a couple of weeks ago to gmail and I've had no problems at all with my phone.

do a search on t'internet ... you must be the only one lol

did you have a googlemail account set-up on your phone before you switched to gmail ?

 

[JasonC]

do a search on t'internet ... you must be the only one lol

did you have a googlemail account set-up on your phone before you switched to gmail ?

I did and still do have a googlemail account setup on my phone, all works perfect.

 

[junkiepilot]

It's not mandatory to switch to gmail anyway is it?

 

[JasonC]

It's not mandatory to switch to gmail anyway is it?

No, and you can switch back, but the old googlemail address will still work.

 

[prav]

I've always used @gmail even way back when it was started and never had a problem.

When it started it WAS @gmail for all users, then for some reason they later changed it to start registering UK users as @googlemail (think it was some copyright or trademark issue or some rubbish)

Anyway, on topic - I just want to point out that even if your address is officially still @googlemail you can still receive emails sent to @gmail, so if it causes problems to switch it seems there should be no good reason to do so.

 

[geemacd]

I believe its because they are hanging the name of the product from googlemail to gmail, so at the moment it aint mandatory to do this, but knowing how various companies have ran in the past ... this will be forced upon everyone at some point imo

 

[delinear]

When it started it WAS @gmail for all users, then for some reason they later changed it to start registering UK users as @googlemail (think it was some copyright or trademark issue or some rubbish)

Yes, I seem to recall some small company claimed the right to the gmail name (I thought they were Canadian, but maybe that affects the UK too as it's part of the commonwealth, or maybe I'm just mixing it up with someone else).

I think both names will stay around for quite a while, and hopefully, since it's Google's OS, they will fix whatever the issues are that people have been having in a future version of Android. I won't bother changing mine until they do, I'd be surprised if @googlemail went away before I replace my current phone anyway!

 

[Deleted User]

This thread is a little late, have a read of this: http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/73238-gmail-co-uk-addresses-available-soon-implications.html

Your phone will still work okay if you change from Googlemail to Gmail apart from you won't be able to access the Market. A factory reset is necessary to sort that out but that doesn't take long to get back to how it was if you have auto-backups enabled.

 

[AlastairH]

Yes, I seem to recall some small company claimed the right to the gmail name (I thought they were Canadian, but maybe that affects the UK too as it's part of the commonwealth, or maybe I'm just mixing it up with someone else).

IIRC, it was a German company, luckily I got in before they changed it so I have always had an @gmail address.

 

[maverick1200]

I havent changed and wont do, even though my email address is googlemail.com i still give out gmail.com and use gmail.com to sign up to things and all the emails still come through. I think ill have the best of both worlds.

 

[Banzibarn]

I havent changed and wont do, even though my email address is googlemail.com i still give out gmail.com and use gmail.com to sign up to things and all the emails still come through. I think ill have the best of both worlds.

Yep, I'd not bother changing, doesn't really add a benefit, and for me, it screwed up my calendar when I switched.

 

[delinear]

IIRC, it was a German company, luckily I got in before they changed it so I have always had an @gmail address.

Ah yes, I think you're right, I remember now because his slogan was something weird like "gmail... and it's gone" (but in german) - I'm not sure why Canada sprang to mind, probably someone else suing Google about something different!

I had one of the original addresses too, unfortunately I lost the details and when I went to sign up again I was a bit annoyed that it had changed to the much less usable @googlemail, oh well!

 

[mpw]

...it had changed to the much less usable @googlemail, oh well!

I signed up just after it changed, but always used @gmail.com too, emails sent to either all get through. Only problems I ever had was when a friend signed me up to dropbox and used @goo' and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't login, because she'd said she used my email for my username, and this weekend when I switched from @goo' to @gma', and found the problem with the Market and syncing etc. on my phone. Fixing just required changing back to @goo' and instantly my phone was back to normal. Must admit though, it does seem like a bit of a ball drop by Google.

 

[delinear]

I signed up just after it changed, but always used @gmail.com too, emails sent to either all get through. Only problems I ever had was when a friend signed me up to dropbox and used @goo' and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't login, because she'd said she used my email for my username, and this weekend when I switched from @goo' to @gma', and found the problem with the Market and syncing etc. on my phone. Fixing just required changing back to @goo' and instantly my phone was back to normal. Must admit though, it does seem like a bit of a ball drop by Google.

Yes, seems they didn't thoroughly think this through for non-US markets (@googlemail is only a European thing, right?), or maybe just a case where a company gets so big that one department (gmail) don't realise how their actions will affect another (android) - hopefully they've picked up on the issues people are reporting and will do something to resolve it now.

 

[DCFC79]

So is the consensus to use gmail rather than googlemail,

 

[mpw]

So is the consensus to use gmail rather than googlemail,

No, the opposite for me.

Because my account was always @googlemail it screwed up my Android stuff when I changed to @gmail, so I changed back to @googlemail and everything's working again fine.

However I have never given out @googlemail, only ever sign up to stuff as @gmail, and it's never been a problem @gmail always worked, but Google couldn't market that until recently in the UK due to a dispute.

If you're setting up a new account then it'll be @gmail by default I'd assume.

 

[stringent]

Well I switched. You have to factory reset your phone, then it will ask to restore your files and settings, do this but DONT set up an account initially until you see the home screen. Check you have all your texts and stuff first before going into accounts to setup your GMail account. Also I seemed to have lost all my phone contacts in the restore despite them being on the phone in the first place. Oh well, I have the Google ones which I use but the phone ones for higher res pictures. I now have GMail. As it was meant to be.

 

[photek1000]

I had issues when I got the offer to change, although I use the gmail tag rather than the googlemail tag I though it might just tidy things up a bit, but stuff stopped working almost straight away, so I switched it back almost immediatly.

It makes no odds what the account is called both gmail and googlemail get to the same place, so I wont be changing again.

 

[mpw]

...You have to factory reset your phone...

If I factory reset my phone, I assume that when I re-enter the gmail account details, it'll populate my contacts, calendar from there, I assume I'll have to look out all my apps again, but I can't think of any paid for that I still use, so no worries there. What else will I lose in a factory reset? Will a factory reset effect the SD card for example?

 

[Deleted User]

If I factory reset my phone, I assume that when I re-enter the gmail account details, it'll populate my contacts, calendar from there, I assume I'll have to look out all my apps again, but I can't think of any paid for that I still use, so no worries there. What else will I lose in a factory reset? Will a factory reset effect the SD card for example?

If you use Astro you can very quickly re-install all your apps. If not you'll still see all your apps on the download tab within the Market and you can download them again from there. It takes a little longer but it's still a matter of a couple of minutes.

I saved the custom scene for the home screens but the save wasn't there after the reset but it didn't take long to get it back how I wanted it of course.

Other than that everything was exactly as it was before IIRC.

 

[JasonC]

It's worth noting that after I changed to gmail from googlemail, I never changed the login details on my phone and left them as googlemail and all works fine.

 

[rigsby]

i took the plunge last night and did a factory reset cus i'd had enough of the little niggles such as picasa in the gallery app repeatedly asking for login info cus it wouldnt recognize @googlemail.com and i just wanted one @gmail account to clear up future confusion.

it turns out its not such a bitch to do afterall. i just changed my account to @gmail on my home pc, which takes a couple of attempts because theres a bug with that too (sort it out google).

i then made sure that 'backup my data & settings' was ticked under privacy on my desire so that all my relevent settings and stored info got stored to the phones memory card.

everything else that i needed was already stored by google online such as contacts, phonenumbers, calender entries etc plus i used an app called smsbackup which stored all my sms messages to my online email account. i synched my photos to picasa using the usb data cable just in case.

i then took a deep breath and went into settings/privacy and hit factory data reset..........it went thru the motions and rebooted and then started the setup manager where i finally got round to entering the holy @gmail.com account setting.

and there it was, sat there before me, the blank homescreen....wat wud i find??? were all my settings still there???? or wud i be working into the night retrieving vodafone network settings, contact info, wifi settings, photos, etc etc.

nope, everything was still in there, only all the apps id downloaded were missing and the custmization i had done to the home screens had gone but that wouldnt take long to put back.

wifi connected straight off, vodafone settings ok, all my calender entries, contacts, sms and internet bookmarks were still present and correct plus the firmware update i had done afterwards was still in place.

internal phone storage was now back upto about 145mb, and i just had the one gmail account registered so uploading photos from the gallery app to picasa now worked smoothly.

i would recommend anyone thinking of doing it just to go ahead and get it done. i dont think theres gonna be a workaround for some time to come and the whole process was pretty painless.