Hi to all!
I am new to this forum (and to Android in general, unlike my experience in iOS and almost all versions of Symbian) so please excuse me if I post this thread in a wrong section.
I got my Desire Z 2 days ago and I must say that I really liked my new phone
. However, I am experiencing issues with phone's GMail integration. I've never actually used the HTC's mail client (except when I set my mail up as an Exchange account on the phone's first boot setup screen) because all the e-mails I am using are GMail/GApps accounts so I want a GMail-spesific experience, especially the custom from adresses/"reply from the same address the message was sent to" being extremely important.
Before updating my phone's software to v1.83.468.2, the latest version OTA update downloaded, I'd had one or two hours to use the version of GMail client that came with the phone (unfortunately, I don't remember which version it was). From what I could observe in such a short time, that version worked smooth, however it didnt support the custom from adresses properly. Then I checked updates, phone told me v1.83.468.2 update is available and I downloaded it. After update is complete, v2.2 (if I remember correctly) of GMail was installed. I had a really small chance to test this version and from what I saw it worked fine too, but that version didn't support custom from adresses at all!
So I did some research on internet, read the posts of people who encountered problems with custom from adresses and in one Google support forum thread, I saw a Google official's reply saying problems regarding this are fixed in v2.3.4. When I checked on Market, I saw the last version is v2.3.4.1, however, it didn't let me download it because apperantly "it can't be downloaded to my device in my country" :S. So I searched for the .apk of v2.3.4.1, downloaded the .apk and installed it.
I could observe how better the GMail experience got in this version and the custom from adresses/"reply from the same address the message was sent to" features couldn't be any better! However, there are certain problems that I have when i use this version of GMail:
1. After a fresh setup (clearing cache+clearing all program data then wait for client to sync all mails), it takes approx. 10-20 mail notifications (when I continiously send and receive mails) for GMail client to lose sync. By "lose sync" I mean, GMail just doesn't give notifications for unread mail unless u manually open the app and tap Refresh! What annoying about this problem is you just can't know when it will lose sync so you will either have to check new e-mails by manually refreshing it like all the time to make sure you won't miss any mails (that doesn't sound like the best push mail experience, eh? :S) or notice you have an unread mail possibly hours later, if you log on GMail on computer or manually refresh the app.
As I mentioned above, you can receive the mails when you manually open the GMail app, press Menu and tap Refresh. When you follow this steps after sometimes you see the unread e-mail highlighted in bold in inbox but sometimes, only the Inbox (0) badge changes to Inbox (1) and you can't see the unread mail in the inbox. It appears like the app gets "confused" time to time lol.
I mostly have these problems in hard use but rarely I happen to get the notifications not in time when I send/receive like 3-5 mails in a day too. The strange part is, sometimes after you do the refreshing thing, the notifications start working in time again. When this doesn't do the trick, I go to Settings - Applications - Manage Applications and clear data and cache. But none of these prevents the second problem to occur:
2. Sometimes ONLY after I send a mail, I get the following error message:
"The application Gmail (process com.google.android.gm) has stopped unexpectedly." (only option is Force Close)
Clearing data and cache DEFINITELY doesn't solve the problem for good, it just earns you some other properly working time without the error message. I get rid of the error message every time I clear the program data but as I keep clearing program data over and over, the program just gets more "confused" and sync problems occur more randomly and I start seeing the error message more often.
I think the problems are related, since the program can't give notifications if it is "force closed" and not running in the background (strangely, it may not give notifications BEFORE I get the error message and have to force close it too) and I've never seen such error message in the previous versions of GMail. What only seems to be working is just waiting, it is like program "gets tired" during or after heavy use of mails, which would totally made the phone useless for me since I send/receive more than 100 mails in a day. I'm wondering if the previous version, v2.3.4 or the next version, v2.3.4.2 (which is not in the market but I saw people on the internet who have this version running on their phones).
I know it is a complicated problem and I am sorry for such a long post but I really need your help. The main reason I wanted Desire Z's physical keyboard is for it to help me with writing emails, and one of the main reasons I wanted an Android phone in the first place is my thinking that Android would have the best GMail integration since Google own the both. And I think I am right, it is WAY TOO better than iOS and Symbian (and sometimes even better than having GMail on my computer's browser
), but having problems with it is making unpleasant to use. Thanks in advance for your help.
I am new to this forum (and to Android in general, unlike my experience in iOS and almost all versions of Symbian) so please excuse me if I post this thread in a wrong section.
I got my Desire Z 2 days ago and I must say that I really liked my new phone
. However, I am experiencing issues with phone's GMail integration. I've never actually used the HTC's mail client (except when I set my mail up as an Exchange account on the phone's first boot setup screen) because all the e-mails I am using are GMail/GApps accounts so I want a GMail-spesific experience, especially the custom from adresses/"reply from the same address the message was sent to" being extremely important.Before updating my phone's software to v1.83.468.2, the latest version OTA update downloaded, I'd had one or two hours to use the version of GMail client that came with the phone (unfortunately, I don't remember which version it was). From what I could observe in such a short time, that version worked smooth, however it didnt support the custom from adresses properly. Then I checked updates, phone told me v1.83.468.2 update is available and I downloaded it. After update is complete, v2.2 (if I remember correctly) of GMail was installed. I had a really small chance to test this version and from what I saw it worked fine too, but that version didn't support custom from adresses at all!
So I did some research on internet, read the posts of people who encountered problems with custom from adresses and in one Google support forum thread, I saw a Google official's reply saying problems regarding this are fixed in v2.3.4. When I checked on Market, I saw the last version is v2.3.4.1, however, it didn't let me download it because apperantly "it can't be downloaded to my device in my country" :S. So I searched for the .apk of v2.3.4.1, downloaded the .apk and installed it.
I could observe how better the GMail experience got in this version and the custom from adresses/"reply from the same address the message was sent to" features couldn't be any better! However, there are certain problems that I have when i use this version of GMail:
1. After a fresh setup (clearing cache+clearing all program data then wait for client to sync all mails), it takes approx. 10-20 mail notifications (when I continiously send and receive mails) for GMail client to lose sync. By "lose sync" I mean, GMail just doesn't give notifications for unread mail unless u manually open the app and tap Refresh! What annoying about this problem is you just can't know when it will lose sync so you will either have to check new e-mails by manually refreshing it like all the time to make sure you won't miss any mails (that doesn't sound like the best push mail experience, eh? :S) or notice you have an unread mail possibly hours later, if you log on GMail on computer or manually refresh the app.
As I mentioned above, you can receive the mails when you manually open the GMail app, press Menu and tap Refresh. When you follow this steps after sometimes you see the unread e-mail highlighted in bold in inbox but sometimes, only the Inbox (0) badge changes to Inbox (1) and you can't see the unread mail in the inbox. It appears like the app gets "confused" time to time lol.
I mostly have these problems in hard use but rarely I happen to get the notifications not in time when I send/receive like 3-5 mails in a day too. The strange part is, sometimes after you do the refreshing thing, the notifications start working in time again. When this doesn't do the trick, I go to Settings - Applications - Manage Applications and clear data and cache. But none of these prevents the second problem to occur:
2. Sometimes ONLY after I send a mail, I get the following error message:
"The application Gmail (process com.google.android.gm) has stopped unexpectedly." (only option is Force Close)
Clearing data and cache DEFINITELY doesn't solve the problem for good, it just earns you some other properly working time without the error message. I get rid of the error message every time I clear the program data but as I keep clearing program data over and over, the program just gets more "confused" and sync problems occur more randomly and I start seeing the error message more often.
I think the problems are related, since the program can't give notifications if it is "force closed" and not running in the background (strangely, it may not give notifications BEFORE I get the error message and have to force close it too) and I've never seen such error message in the previous versions of GMail. What only seems to be working is just waiting, it is like program "gets tired" during or after heavy use of mails, which would totally made the phone useless for me since I send/receive more than 100 mails in a day. I'm wondering if the previous version, v2.3.4 or the next version, v2.3.4.2 (which is not in the market but I saw people on the internet who have this version running on their phones).
I know it is a complicated problem and I am sorry for such a long post but I really need your help. The main reason I wanted Desire Z's physical keyboard is for it to help me with writing emails, and one of the main reasons I wanted an Android phone in the first place is my thinking that Android would have the best GMail integration since Google own the both. And I think I am right, it is WAY TOO better than iOS and Symbian (and sometimes even better than having GMail on my computer's browser
), but having problems with it is making unpleasant to use. Thanks in advance for your help.
. I will contact Google about why I can't do the update from the Market and then I will try a factory reset and update Gmail from the Market. Thanks for your reply 
