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Question

Problems sending G-mail on Samsung Galaxy 5S Active AT&T

Mar 18, 2016 11:17AM PDT

I have a Galaxy S5 Active on ATT. It says that it's running Android version 5, but don't see anything about Lollipop, Jellybean or anything else? When I go to "About Device" & check if there are any software updates that need to be downloaded, it says yes, I then hit continue, it starts downloading, says don't leave the wi-fi area, etc., (which I don't) but it ALWAYS FAILS! Even if it says that it has completed the download, when I go to install it & reboot, it fails. Then, when I go back to check to see if the phone needs updating, it says that it is up to date & I need to check back in 24 hours?

I have been having multiple problems, but unfortunately, they are inconsistent & hard to pin down what might have precipitated it? The battery seems to drain quickly, but sometimes worse than others. I was having some problems with my Yahoo mail not refreshing for HOURS, even after I synced it manually multiple times. Now, Yahoo seems like it is better, but now I CAN NOT SEND e-mails from my G-Mail account! They keep failing & the error message that I get is that I can't sign in to the account? I also get a message that it can't authenticate the server. What does that mean?

I rebooted several times, even took the back off, removed the battery & re-inserted it. After a couple of days when I reopened the e-mail from the Outbox folder & tried sending it, it worked! This was not after I had done anything specific. I assumed that either Samsung, AT&T, Google or another conflicting App had figured out that they had a bug & fixed it, but then a couple of days passed & I'm having the same problem AGAIN.

I started having problems with the G-mail after I had downloaded a couple of Apps. I downloaded them from the official Google Play & they seem innocuous, like the Safeway App, the Whole Foods App. It's scary to see what "permissions" these Apps have & *** do they even need them for? I don't know if any could have changed my settings & I don't know which settings I should look for to tell if they might be suspicious? I'm also running Clean Master & Avast Mobile Security, but I have had them for a long time. They shouldn't be a problem unless one of their recent updates changed something or it conflicts with something else?

I recently downloaded Google Drive for my phone. You would think that Google's own App would play nicely with G-mail, but it might have changed the Sync settings? Unfortunately, I don't know what the setting were BEFORE or even what they SHOULD have been? Is there anyplace on-line where I could find the standard settings? I wish that there was a way to SAVE the settings before you install new software & then be able to ROLL BACK to them after you discover a conflict. One good thing from the old Windows days, you could refresh to the last stable state. Maybe that's too much to ask. Sigh.

I'm posting this here & hopefully another couple of places. (any suggestions?) I have searched on-line & have not found my exact same problems described, either the issue, the carrier, the phone and/or the software is different. One forum suggested to change the port on which the outgoing server uses. Before I do that, I want to do some screen saves of what my original settings are so that I can change back if I need to. I don't know if those setting are correct, but want to be methodical & see which change might make the difference. Is there some other way to save the setting to a file?

Does anyone know if there is a place on the phone where you can view the "History" of the changes, both when Apps were downloaded & updated? I looked at some of my new Apps & it doesn't say the date that they were downloaded, which might be helpful in figuring out if any of them coincide with any problems. I don't want to just uninstall them yet until I figure out which one may have the bug, or which one might have altered some settings.

I please don't just tell me to do a factory reset, like it's EASY. I have had this phone for over a year & I have done so many different customizations, setting ringtones, setting up notifications, etc., etc., etc., I don't want to have to start from scratch again. & another thing; I had contacts from the Sim card on my old phone, my Facebook contacts, some from my G-mail account ( which for some reason had stopped syncing?) and when the guy @ Best Buy transferred settings from my old phone to the new. I ended up with multiple copies of some contacts so I had painstakingly merged them, which took a lot of time. Then, after one of the times that AT&T updated the software, all of my work was undone & was back to having multiple entries for the majority of my contacts. Then, just recently, some of the contacts that I use the most just disappeared & I had to recreate them?

If I didn't need this phone for so much I would just throw it against the wall.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
That's one long post.
Mar 18, 2016 11:23AM PDT

As to gmail, it works here. I've using the settings given by gmail support at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/4570255?hl=en

As to battery drain, I find that apps tend to eat battery time. I have a few android phones and given the proliferation of ad supported apps that drain the batter due to fetching apps, I no longer install those.

As to contacts, I think it's best to backup and restore such with an app. There are so many that I can't pick one for you.

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Yes, perhaps I should have separated problems, but...
Mar 18, 2016 12:23PM PDT

Yes, I could have separated out the contacts issue. Yes, I should have a back-up (& do) of my contacts, but it is irritating that AT&T CREATED a problem & does not have an easy way for me to fix/undo it. I don't always know when AT&T is going to update itself & what settings I need to copy/save/backup until AFTER it screws up something. One solution would be to make sure that I have a back-up of my contacts after EVERY SINGLE CHANGE that I make so that I don't have to worry what I have missed since my last save.

Sorry, part of my rant was asking for help & part was complaining that if it's supposed to be a "Smart" phone, why is it so much work & why should I have to waste so much time figuring out how to fix something that shouldn't have gotten screwed up in the first place.

I could send my complaints/questions/suggestions to AT&T, Samsung, Google or whatever & hope that if enough people have the same problem & complain that they will just fix it? It's another waste of my time figuring out how/where/who to send complaints to because they usually force you to run the gauntlet of searching through their FAQ before you can submit something new.

I posted MULTIPLE problems because I don't know which ones might be related to each other? I submitted the model, carrier, OS, etc., but I think that it's also important to know the history, what was working, what's now not to tease out what might be the culprit.

I was initially excited to go to the link that was posted for the Google mail, only to see that it was instructions on how to set it up. I guess that even with all of my wordiness it wasn't clear enough that I used to be able to send mail from my Samsung S5 Active & had been for a year & even longer on my old Samsung S3. I don't need to SET UP an account, I need to figure out now why all of a sudden it's not working. I can receive mail, but not send.

I am on my phone only for part of the week & don't have access to my desktop. The drafts & outbox in G-mail on my phone are not synched to my desktop account, so if I can't send it from my phone I need to recreate it on my desktop, which is another waste of time.

Another piece of the puzzle that may/may not be useful information? I got this message via e-mail:
"Someone just tried to sign in to your Google Account ______@gmail.com from an app that doesn't meet modern security standards.
We strongly recommend that you use a secure app, like Gmail, to access your account. All apps made by Google meet these security standards. Using a less secure app, on the other hand, could leave your account vulnerable. Learn more.
Google stopped this sign-in attempt, but you should review your recently used devices:

I am using the same interface that I used before to read/send my mail on my phone. I'm using the same phone that I have had for over a year. Apparently there was some change & now Gmail thinks that the app or some other settings on my phone makes it not safe anymore?

I know that G-mail is a "free" service & this forum works because there are people who take their time to help each other without getting paid. I hope that I can get help & that someone else can benefit from my troubleshooting process. Thanks for your time.

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That's too long.
Mar 18, 2016 12:41PM PDT

I hope you can pare it down so I can see a problem or two and then tackle it.

In your last paragraph, are you saying the problems are taken care of?

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biggest problem is can't send Gmail mail
Mar 18, 2016 2:09PM PDT

Yes, there is a lot that I would like to fix, but the most pressing problem is; I used to be able to send e-mails via my Samsung S5 Active phone, running Android 5.0 via AT&T. Now, I CAN NOT.

The problem started a little over a week ago. There was a short period of time that I could access the failed mail from the outbox & managed to send a few, but now, that does not work. I have tried multiple things, multiple times. I do not know what made it not work in the first place, nor what might have changed in the window that I could send mail, but now, it does NOT work.

I know that I may have to go to AT&T & have them check my phone, see if I do have the most updated software version, etc., but I have a feeling that they will want me to do a factory reset & I want to do all that I can before having to resort to that. Before I do that it would also be helpful to know if I need to do anything special to backup my settings & preferences & how to restore. There is probably a FAQ answer for that somewhere?

I don't know if there is a way to find out what settings will NOT be saved? There are some things that will just be time-consuming to recreate if I had to reset the phone, others that I may not even be aware of, so they may be lost. I was relieved that when I switched from my Galaxy S3 to the 5 that when the Best Buy guy transferred the settings to the new phone it had saved the passwords to the Wi-Fi's that I already had access to. This is both good/bad; if my phone was stolen, could someone else get access to it too?

Do you know if there is an easy way to export a file that shows my current settings? Is there some way to make a "mirror image" of my phone & save it to my desktop so that I could restore it? It would be helpful for troubleshooting & sharing the info with someone else. I don't want to change too many things in the process without knowing how to roll back. I don't want to create more problems & not know what caused it.

Thanks again for your time.

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As to backup and restore.
Mar 18, 2016 3:32PM PDT

There has yet to be a standard emerge for Android phones. I'm going with not yet. Maybe someday they'll tackle that area.

Same answer for you dumping a report on settings. Haven't seen that yet. Most of the time I just look through the settings until I find it.

I did share the link for the settings I use. Works fine here on the half dozen android phones I have (I work with a company writing android apps.)

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software interrupt?
Mar 18, 2016 6:51PM PDT

Another potential "insight"?

The AT&T upgrade failed yet again. It said that it was "interrupted"? It was sitting right next to the Wi-Fi modem & I wasn't even touching it. Could there be an App or other process working in the background that is keeping the software from getting loaded? I would think that the major AT&T software would take precedent over everything, but something keeps stopping it. Is there anyway to put the phone in a kind of "safe mode" so that it can make sure to download the AT&T update without getting corrupted? Does anyone know of any potential apps that should be stopped before trying to upgrade?

I run Avast Mobile Security & Clean Master. Perhaps the next step is to disable those & retry the update. That's begging the question that the update will solve my G-mail problem...