Talking FOREVER to check e-mail

[appleMacTech]

Shaw email problems. Yet again. OMG, this is frustrating the living daylights out of me.

Why is it taking so long to check imap.shaw.ca on my iPhone 8 Plus running iOS 12.4? Checking e-mail using Apple Mail takes WAY longer than it ever used to for some reason. It now takes 15 to 20 seconds to check 8 e-mail accounts on one iPhone, sometimes it can take up to 30 or 35 seconds. It used to take about 3 to 4 seconds. This does NOT happen on our Mac desktop computers, it ONLY happens on my iPhone. Checking those same 8 accounts on our desktop Macs takes about 1 second (if that). We do not get any error messages any longer but the "progress wheel" spins and spins, using up more battery power, not to mention cellular usage when on the Rogers network.

Keep in mind that I am an ACMT (Apple Certified Macintosh Technician) with 27 years of experience. I have reset my iPhone, I have re-created my email accounts again (for about the 20th time), I have done absolutely every troubleshooting step that I know how to do as a technician.

Let's take a quick look at what has happened with Shaw e-mail over the past few months.

I believe it was in November 2019 when Shaw email services completely went down for the better part of a day. The problem got resolved. When I called Shaw tech support about this particular problem, nobody there was even aware of the problem. I had to TELL them that there was a problem. I got put on hold, the technician came back on the phone and said “yes, you are correct, we are experiencing problems”. This is the kind of tech support I have come to expect from Shaw, it is terrible. From there, everything went downhill.

Then, sometime around December 20th of 2019, we began getting, at random -- totally intermittent all day long -- "can't connect to imap.shaw.ca" or "multiple account errors" when checking e-mail using Apple Mail on our phones and desktop computers. I posted about this in this discussion so I won’t elaborate on it any further in this new discussion, You can read about it here. Nobody at Shaw was aware of the fact that there was any kind of problem whatsoever. I was told repeatedly over and over and over that there was no problem. But there WAS a problem:

https://support.shaw.ca/t5/internet-discussions/e-mail-problems-intermittent-for-3-weeks/td-p/12725

Only ONE Shaw technician admitted that something was, in fact, changed on Shaw's end around December 20th of 2019. This technician worked out of Nanaimo but unfortuntely, I did not get his name or ID number.

The above problem FINALLY got better a month ago. For about 4 weeks now (touch wood), we have NOT been getting the ”can't connect to imap.shaw.ca" or "multiple account errors" anymore on our Mac desktop computers OR on our iPhones. BUT…

But now, we get this annoying delay checking e-mail on my iPhone. What the heck is the problem this time? Absolutely nothing has changed on my end. In fact, nothing has changed on my end for 6 months with the exception of having re-created my email accounts out of necessity to try and troubleshoot Shaw’s continual email problems.

I am so sick and tired of seeing the spinning wheel checking mail, it is eating up my battery power and my cellular usage. When are these problems ever going to get fixed by Shaw?

Once again, this problem is not isolated to any particular networking issues either in the home or out on the street or in coffee shops. It happens over the Rogers cellular network, too. This confirms that the problem is on Shaw's end.

[appleMacTech]

6 days and no reply, how typical. Shaw is losing it. This e-mail problem is getting worse, it is now up to 22+ seconds every time I check e-mail on my iPhone. Can the Shaw imap servers that iOS checks really be _that_ overloaded? Upgrading this iPhone to iOS 13 is not an option as it is used for iOS development/testing purposes. iOS 12 or iOS 13 should make no difference, iOS 12 is by no means outdated.

[mdk]

If you login to Shaw Webmail from a desktop computer, how many messages are available on Shaw's IMAP-server?

How much of the 1GByte of space (on Shaw's server) is being used?

Can you delete all the items from the "Deleted Items" folder, to reduce the count of messages?

[Angep]

Hey appleMacTech.  I may be wayyyy off however recently on my iPad Pro 2017 2nd edition, both my My Shaw app and my BluecurveTV app are both unusable.  I'm not sure whether all Shaw's functions are tied to Adobe Flash Player but I do know I believe that that dependency with my BluecurveTV App on iPad is causing me issues & after just receiving not an 'update' on my Macbook Pro 2017, but an 'Uninstaller' from Adobe, I'm sure you're aware Adobe is discontinuing Flash Player and it will no longer function at the end of December 2020 on mobile and computers / laptops.

if your email on your iPhone in any way uses Flash Player, perhaps that is the cause for your longer wait times to view emails other than what was already mentioned, over storage clogging up the works.

Cheers & hope it resolves itself  🙂

[ldey]

I'm not trying to access email on my phone but it's taking me at least 4 tries and several breaks to access my email on my PC. It gets to the 'loading' message and then nothing happens.  Have emailed them (from my google account which I hate too) but have received not response.

[shaw-tony]

@appleMacTech I am very sorry to hear of your frustrations. I have an update with ticket # ENOP0007174 as per our conversation here. I am advised that our engineering team is applying some patches to alleviate some performance issues. I do not have a current ETA. 

@ldey are you also using a MAC email client? Do you notice the same issues directly through https://webmail.shaw.ca/?

[appleMacTech]

These patches either have not yet been applied or they have totally failed. It is taking 30 SECONDS to check all eight of my e-mail accounts now. It used to take 2 seconds max on my iPhone last year. This is just pathetic.

[appleMacTech]

2 weeks and counting, still taking 30 seconds to check e-mail on my iPhone (which should only take 1 to 2 seconds). What happened to the patches you promised? Perhaps a "friendly" reminder to your "engineering team" might help? OMG, is this ever ever ever frustrating.

[rstra]

My work exchange mail takes a while to check too, just on my iPhone. The IT guys think it is a recent update to the iPhone.

[appleMacTech]

For crying out loud, now this just started happening on my Late 2015 iMac running Mojave 10.14.6. Delays checking Apple e-mail on my COMPUTER, not just my iPhone. When on earth is Shaw ever going to fix these problems for their Mac users? I AM SO FED UP WITH SHAW, honestly we're just minutes away from pulling the plug on this non-existent and sub-standard "service", talk about a lack of knowledgeable tech support, it's not just pathetic, it's a joke