Then we thought cellular data might be off– but we saw it was on. We started out thinking the problem involved the iPhone settings for Laura’s email accounts, but that wasn’t it. Mail settings in iOS 13, with Cellular Data on (yours should be on too!)Īs usual, solving this problem started with figuring out what the problem was. It’s called “Use Cellular Data For:” and here’s how it looked (this is iOS 10– other versions may look a little different). This revealed a section of Cellular’s settings that I hadn’t looked at. The Fix for the iPhone that wouldn’t get Mail over cellular In effect I’d copied the problem to the new iPhone.
Now I knew we had a software (or settings) problem, because the new iPhone (a clone of the old one, software-wise) had the exact symptom exhibited by the old iPhone. Then I turned WiFi off and tried doing it over cellular– and it did NOT work. When the new iPhone was ready I tested sending and receiving email over WiFi, and it worked perfectly (as expected). Restoring a backup to a new iPhone can be a very lengthy process, as this one was, but I had to wait it out to see if the new phone could get mail when not on WiFi.
The old iPhone was backed up to iCloud, so I set up the new one by restoring that backup to it. Everything else worked fine– Messages, phone calls, Weather, other apps. Actually, the only thing it had trouble with was Mail– the iPhone would not send nor receive email unless the iPhone was on WiFi. She left the iPhone 7 in the box for me to set up upon her return to Los Angeles.Īt this point, the old iPhone still didn’t work right. Laura went to a nearby Apple Store, told them her story, and they sold her a nice new iPhone 7, hoping it would solve her problem. And we knew the cellular data antenna worked, because we could use Safari and load web pages when not on WiFi. We knew we had the right settings for Mail because the accounts worked fine when on WiFi. When on cellular, Safari worked, but Mail did not. To recap: when on WiFi, Safari worked, and so did Mail. But guess what? Safari worked just fine over cellular, in the car. My guess was that this would not work and that we would narrow our problem down to something wrong with the network connection (or maybe the antenna) when not on WiFi. “Try going to web pages with Safari,” I said. My next guess was that maybe there was something wrong with Laura’s account with Verizon. Laura checked (Settings/Cellular)– it was on. Something must be wrong with Cellular Data.” Maybe it was turned off.
“Mail works over WiFi, but not on Verizon’s network. I asked Laura, “Where were you yesterday, when your iPhone’s Mail worked?” The funny things was, we both knew Mail worked perfectly yesterday. “Florida,” she said (I was in California so I couldn’t fix her iPhone in person). The next day, I got another call from Laura. I asked Laura to try sending me an email and to our surprise, it worked. And since I was able to send and receive emails from both of her accounts, her email accounts were working fine. I tried setting up one of my spare iPhones with Laura’s email settings and I was able to send and receive from both of her accounts– obviously, if I could sign into her accounts, we knew the right settings. I had her check the settings for Mail and they seemed fine.