Fix: iPhone Users Reporting Problems Retrieving Mails in the Background After Upgrading to Firmware 2.1

November 2009

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As per this Apple Discussion thread, there are quite a few iPhone users reporting that their iPhone's mail application fails to retrieve mails in the background when push is enabled and regardless of the interval that is set after upgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1.

If you are facing this issue then you can checkout the solution (after the jump) that might help fix the problem.

pman83, was one of the forum users to first report the issue writes:

"I'm having issues with fetching gmail imap since 2.1. iphone will not fetch at any interval except if i manually open the email app. I've tried various settings and performed a restore and erased content and settings with no luck. i also tried creating a new gmail account, which didn't help."

Based on the response to the thread on Apple discussion forum, there are quite a few iPhone users facing this issue. Matt says:

"Have the same problem. Gmail IMAP was working just fine for me until I applied the 2.1 firmware.. Now I don't seem to be getting any notifications of new mail.. It seems only when I open up Mail do I get a notification. I had mail sitting in my box for over an hour, and it did not alert me.. I've got my fetch interval set to 15 min! I had NO problems prior to 2.

This can be very annoying as iPhone's mail application is one of the best iPhone apps and hence one of the most used apps and can get even more frustrating if you are a business user.

However, Apple discussions user, bradproctor might have found a workaround to this problem though a little tedious. He has observed that downgrading to iPhone firmware 2.0.2 and re-adding your email accounts afresh and then upgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1 resolves the issue.

However, please remember to backup your iPhone so that you can restore your personal information.

You can downgrade to iPhone firmware 2.0.2 using the instructions in the YouTube video below: