Synergy (webOS)

[#1]

I have been unable to get my Palm Pre to correctly handle IMAP email for our business email accounts (we do not use Microsoft Exchange), whether set up with encryption or not. I spoke with two tech support reps yesterday morning, and was promised a call-back from Level 3 support, which has never come. At this point, if this problem cannot be resolved by the end of this week, I am thinking of returning the Pre and exchanging it for a Blackberry.

First, if I set up an email account simply by letting the Pre automatically create it, it results in settings of IMAP, Incoming Port #143 (no encryption), Outgoing Port # 25 (no encryption). (By the way, and before you even ask: I have also tried to get things working via Manual Setup rather than letting the Pre automatically configure the account, and by trying both EV Sprint connection and WiFi connection.)

What appears then is that under "Default Folders", it reads "Not yet available" - that text is not clickable, nor is it grayed out. If I send out an email from my Pre, it does NOT appear in the Sent folder on my Pre. It does, however, actually get sent and delivered. But it does NOT show up either on my Pre or in our mailserver's Sent box when I log in to our web-based email interface. Again, this is all with the default configuration that was automatically created by the Pre, with no encryption.

Yet if I log in to our web-based email interface, and I send out an email from there, when I go to my Pre Sent folder that email I sent DOES appear there.

Some of the things I've tried: I go to "Preferences & Accounts", click the relevant account, and then I click the button for "Change Login Settings". I've tried changing the mailserver information to our server's IP address; using TLS with Incoming Port 993 and Outgoing Port 465; using SSL with Incoming Port 993 and Outgoing Port 465.

When I try to use TLS encryption, a yellow warning icon appears in the top right corner of my Pre, and the alert message appears in my notifications area which reads:

"Email Application Alert - Error sending "[subject of email]"

So, the email never leaves the Pre Outbox when I try to use TLS. Again, I've tried this both with the mailserver info set to mail.[pickadomain].com and our server IP address (as suggested by our server administrator).

Next, I tried to use SSL for the encryption, again using the 993 and 465 port numbers as directed by our server admin. Here, I get the error notification:

"SSL Certificate Error
The server's security certificate is not a trusted certificate. Contact your IT department or email provider to fix this issue"

To which our server admin noted:

"It sounds like it was connecting properly with SSL since you received the certificate warning which is perfectly normal since the certificate is self-signed. The email client should allow you to permanently accept the cert as a valid one."

But the Pre email client does NOT have an option to permanently accept such a self-signed certificate. Or, maybe it does: my research on the web suggested copying the server's certificate over to the Pre, and then going to Device Info > More Info, then going to Preferences > Certificate Manager. So I did exactly that: I added the Security Certificate received from our server admin, and instructed the Pre to trust it. Hopefully, and expectantly, I then went back to the Pre email - only to be dissapointed once again to find that I continue to receive the "SSL Certificate Error" message.

In all of these scenarios, the "Default Folders" continues to read "Not yet available". I am unable to see the IMAP folders on our server with no encryption set, and with encryption set not only can I not see the IMAP folders, I get the above two error messages using either TLS or SSL.

As a side note: my Pre is also set up for my gMail account (my Synergy is linked to Google rather than Microsoft Exchange or Palm). When I go to that account on the Pre, "Default Folders" is working and shows several folders, and when I click on the GMAIL account in the Pre's email app, it shows all of the folders in my gMail account, rather than the standard "Inbox Outbox Drafts Sent Trash" which I'm getting for any of the email accounts I try to set up in the Pre.

Is there any fix to allow the Pre to work for me - including whether the Pre can simply ignore the trusted certificate issue - or whether I should just throw in the towel at this point? Thanks.

[#2]

Previous to webOS 1.2 I had my email account set up and working. After I upgraded to 1.2 I discovered that I was no longer aqble to send emails no matter what I did to the account settings, but it did have the default folders there still. I then deleted and recreated the account and I can now send and receive emails but the default folders are not available so I'm not keeping a copy of all the mails I send.

[#3]

An update: spoke with Palm Level 3 support yesterday afternoon. They told me "unfortunately, it may be a case where the self-signed certificate is not really supported on our device". They referred me to the Knowledge Base article at http://kb.palm.com/wps/portal/kb/common/article/47857_en.html, and recommended that I have our server administrator add to our dedicated server the StartCom Class 1 Primary Intermediate Free CA.

Well, we had our own trusted cert from Go Daddy on the server, so the server admin used that. And behold: I can now set up IMAP email accounts in the Pre using SSL encryption, and send out emails - they are received by the recipient.

BUT . . . .

Those emails do NOT appear in the Pre's Sent folder. They do not appear in the Sent folder on our server when we log in to our web-based interface (Squirrelmail). (BTW, if I set up the same IMAP account in Outlook, I can send out an email from there and it will appear in the Sent folder, no problems.)

So we're back to the original problem we had. Under "Default Folders", it reads "Not yet available". There is no way on the Pre for me to set a default Sent folder where the mail I send from the Pre will be saved. (But if I do click on the Pre's Sent folder, I can clearly see the mail on my server that I sent out through Outlook, or through Squirrelmail.) The problem appears to be solely a Palm Pre one.

Is there anyone out there who is successfully using a Palm Pre for company email - NOT EAS and not using Microsoft Exchange, not gMail, not POP3 - but using IMAP, for their own company domain or domains on their own host server? Anyone at all? If so, what WebOS version are you using (maybe it's all just a v.1.2.1 problem)? This sleek, glossy little device doesn't seem to be "ready for prime time" for business usage, and is just one day away from being returned....

[#4]

---

cdemarco wrote:

I can now set up IMAP email accounts in the Pre using SSL encryption, and send out emails - they are received by the recipient.

BUT . . . .

Those emails do NOT appear in the Pre's Sent folder. They do not appear in the Sent folder on our server when we log in to our web-based interface (Squirrelmail). (BTW, if I set up the same IMAP account in Outlook, I can send out an email from there and it will appear in the Sent folder, no problems.)

---

As you have found out, the IMAP Default folder problem has nothing to do with the SSL problem.  I'm currently not using any encryption on my email accts.  And like you (and others here) I still cannot setup default folders even though the palm can find the folder list and does sync those folders.

As I have said before, I believe the problem lies in the portion of the code that is run when the email acct is setup.  I believed it worked prior to 1.2, but it no longer works.  I have a friend that setup his IMAP email accts in 1.1 and upgraded to 1.2. (and now 1.2.1)  His didn't break, he still has default folders.  (I believe yours broke due to the completely seperate SSL issue.)

If I didn't have a number of other things setup on my phone already, I would be tempted to flash my pre back to 1.1 and setup my e-mail.  Then upgrade to 1.2.1.  I really think that would work.  But for me, I personally don't have the time to go through that ordeal.  But if this isn't resolved in the next few weeks, I might have to find time.

[#5]

Thanks for your input, craig. I've already wasted 3 days - hours and hours of phone conversations and e-mails and IMing with Palm support personnel and our server administrators, way more than I ever should have had to spend just to be able to do a business function as rudimentary as IMAP email. So I'm pretty much done at this point: lesson learned, I should have listened to the friends who were telling me to leave Palm behind and switch to Blackberry, rather than going from my Treo to a Pre, but I've been a Palm user since the original Palm Pilot and old habits die hard. I guess I have no choice but to listen to those friends now.

[#6]

So, I did give Palm, and the Pre, one last try yesterday afternoon. I figured I'd call up tech support and see if there was anything that could be done to fix the "Not yet available" error in the "Default Folders" field for IMAP accounts. They pulled up my support ticket, and I was told that the Level 3 tech would call me back within the hour. That was 22 hours ago.

I have now had my phone number switched back to my trusty old Treo 700p, and the Pre is being brought back to the Sprint store "within the hour".

You know, if someone has just told me, "Hang in there, there is going to be a WebOS update within a week (or two weeks, or whatever) that is going to fix that issue", that's all it would have taken for me to stick with it and wait it out. But no one offered me any hope on the horizon.

I see that The Blackberry Tour is the same price from Sprint as the Pre ($149 after rebates), and from my research seems to be much more business-user-friendly.

[#7 · Accepted solution]

Disclaimer...  The below information is NOT for the everyday user...  What I did and what I am about to describe, if done incorrectly could cause serious problems with your palm pre.  Some details as to how I accomplished certain things are intentionally left out.  THIS IS NOT A HOW TO!

The reason I am describing this is in hopes that a developer will read this and it will help click somethin in their mind so that they can properly fix the problem.

Basically, I got it working on MY pre.

As I suspected, I believe there is a problem when initially setting up the email accts that was introduced with 1.2.  I did verify using a 1.1 SDK, that I could properly setup default folders.  Using the 1.2 SDK, I could not.

Unfortunatly I know VERY little about javascript.  (this was really my first time looking at js code.)  Clean code overall, so kudos to the programmers.  Could use for a bit more comments, but hey... not bad.

Anyway,  I determined that the part of the accountpreferences-assistant.js controller - specifically in the renderAccountDetails function (method? - like I said, I don't know js.) the if statement on line 309:

if (resp.drafts || resp.sent || resp.trash)

was not running.  Apparently resp.drafts, resp.sent, and resp.trash were all false.

What I did was comment out the "if" portions of the code so that it would run what I thought it should.  basically it looked like:

---

//                if (resp.drafts || resp.sent || resp.trash) {
                    // Hide the "Not yet available" message and show the folders
                    this.controller.get('folders-not-available').hide();
                    this.controller.get('folders-available').show();

//                    if (resp.sent) {
                        // Show as disabled if the account domain is gmail or aol as we can't choose
                        // sent folder for these domains. I am using the same logic that is defined in the ImapAccountDefinition.java
                        // to find out whether it allows to change the sent folder.
                        this.imapServerSent.update(resp.sent);
//                        if (resp.accountDomain && (resp.accountDomain.toLowerCase() === 'gmail' || resp.accountDomain.toLowerCase() === 'aol'))
//                            this.controller.get('edit-account-imap-sent').addClassName('disabled');
//                    }
//                    if (resp.drafts)
                        this.imapServerDrafts.update(resp.drafts);
//                    if (resp.trash)
                        this.imapServerTrash.update(resp.trash);
                       
//                }
//                else
//                {
                    // Show the "Not yet available" message and hide the folders
//                    this.controller.get('folders-available').hide();
//                    this.controller.get('folders-not-available').show();
//                }

---

then I rebooted the phone.

After that, I now had the option to set default folders.  After manually setting each default folder, I undid all the comments in the above code to return the code to its original.  Then rebooted again.

Guess what... I STILL have the default folders option!!!

So once default folders are set, the code doesn't have any problems.  It's only when you haven't setup any folder yet that the code breaks.  This explains (like i thought) why my friends pre, who setup his email in 1.1, then upgraded to 1.2 doesn't have this issue.

But, although this is a workaround for me, I cannot setup any future email accts unless I go through the above process again.  So I do hope this helps the coders determine the true cause of the problem.

And before ANYONE asks,  NO I will NOT walk you through the step by step of what I did.  If you don't know enough about Linux, etc. to figure out what I did by the above, you probably shouldn't do what I did. In any case, this isn't the forum to describe it.

-Craig

Edit:

While I appreciate that my post was marked as the "Solution".

I want it clear to Palm that this problem is by no means fully "solved". It is however proof that it is NOT a compatibility issue with certain IMAP servers as a later post suggests.  (There might be a compatibility issue with *some* servers, but not as many as they think.)

Message Edited by craig-tx on 10-12-2009 05:48 AM

[#8]

Awesome, that workaround is working for me as well.

I agree that the root cause still needs to be fixed by Palm, but at least it's working for me now.

[#9]

Wow, craig, looks like you put a lot of thought and work into that, excellent. One would hope that Palm would fix this situation.

I actually received a phone call from a Palm Customer Service rep on Friday night, wanting to ask me some follow-up questions on the survey that I completed. He was very friendly, and seemed genuinely interested in customer service and my problem. When I explained the Default Folders / IMAP situation, he put me on hold to immediately consult with a top-level tech support rep. He was back on the phone with me again in no time at all, to tell me - very candidly - that there was nothing to hold out hope for, that there was a compatibility problem between the Pre and certain servers. I told him that our configuration was nothing esoteric, a Unix server running Courier for the IMAP email, so one would think it should work. Nonetheless, there are certain situation where there is simply nothing that can be done. Perhaps in the future there will be a WebOS update that will render the Pre able to correctly and compatably work with all servers for IMAP, at which time I will be able to revisit the Pre (hopefully, Palm will still be around). It's a shame, really, because I really like the device on a lot of levels - but for me it needs to be a fully-functioning business tool, first and foremost.

[#10]

---

cdemarco wrote:

Wow, craig, looks like you put a lot of thought and work into that, excellent. One would hope that Palm would fix this situation.

I actually received a phone call from a Palm Customer Service rep on Friday night, wanting to ask me some follow-up questions on the survey that I completed. He was very friendly, and seemed genuinely interested in customer service and my problem. When I explained the Default Folders / IMAP situation, he put me on hold to immediately consult with a top-level tech support rep. He was back on the phone with me again in no time at all, to tell me - very candidly - that there was nothing to hold out hope for, that there was a compatibility problem between the Pre and certain servers. I told him that our configuration was nothing esoteric, a Unix server running Courier for the IMAP email, so one would think it should work. Nonetheless, there are certain situation where there is simply nothing that can be done. Perhaps in the future there will be a WebOS update that will render the Pre able to correctly and compatably work with all servers for IMAP, at which time I will be able to revisit the Pre (hopefully, Palm will still be around). It's a shame, really, because I really like the device on a lot of levels - but for me it needs to be a fully-functioning business tool, first and foremost.

---

Well that can't be entirely true given that at least I had no problem with my imap server in webOS 1.1 and it was the update to 1.2 that broke it. Palm have broken something here, it is not always a problem with the imap server.