C500 - IMAP mail never disconnects and phone hangs !!!

[Guest johnequinox]

Dear Newsgroup

I've just road tested my new SPV C500 phone. I set it up for retrieving email from our Corporate server via the IMAP4 protocol. This appeared to connect and retrieve the mail headers OK, but then never actually disconnects. If I manually select the phone says 'Disconnecting' and then just hangs. The keboard does respond, but it is so slow that it appears to take 5-10 seconds to actually acknowledge a keypress. Even the On/Off button locks up so you can't switch the phone off. In the end I had to resort to taking the battery out every time I picked up mail!!! This was pretty embarressing as I was in an embedded seminar at the time giving a presentation how great the ARM9 processors are!

To reproduce the bug:

Phone: Orange SPV C500

Network: Orange in the UK (using Orange GPRS for email)

O/S: Version: 4.21.1088 build 14132

1. Set up an IMAP4 mail account

- I connected to our Corporate server using an IP address

- Select IMAP4 protocol

2. From the messenging sub-menu, I selected my IMAP4 account.

3. Select

--> phone says 'Connecting...Receiving headers'

--> The headers all seem to come down OK but the new mail is not always displayed.

*** BUG 1 ***

The phone then sits waiting after downloading all the headers, but does not automatically disconnect.

4. If I then select to manually disconnect by selecting

*** BUG 2 ***

However, it does not disconnect at all.

The phone then locks up.

All key presses are very very slow.

The screen only updates eg. once every 5-10 seconds.

The on/off button no longer works.

At this point, the only way I could find to reset the phone was to remove the cover and take out the battery for 30 seconds. Unfortunately, this then lost all the mail I just downloaded !!!

Basically, this couple of bugs makes a very nice little phone absolutely useless for picking up email from corporate servers. I can't see how IMAP4 mail can ever have been tested on this phone before release. I know POP3 is popular but IMAP has many advantages over POP3 and is equally as popular and should be supported properly.

Has anyone else had this problem with IMAP4 mail ?

Is there a firmware fix yet ?

A word of warning about Orange in the UK....

I have now phoned Orange in the UK many times regarding problems with the SPV200 and 500 phones. Every time they seem completely incapable of even acknowledging the problems, never mind putting a plan into place to fix it. I believe Orange part funded the development of this phone, so I find it absolutely staggering that there is no formal way of reporting bugs through Orange about this phone. Does anyone know a proper engineering contact at Orange UK who can help out with C500 bugs ?

As of Friday last week, Orange actually told me that as a company 'We do not support IMAP4 as it is an old protocol which not many people use'. I nearly fell off my seat ! They even quote IMAP4 in their own literature and phone documentation!!! After putting in a formal complaint, they eventually changed their wording to say that their tech support staff had not had any training on IMAP4 and so they could not provide any support for it. However, if I use my IPAQ and the C500 as a modem I can do IMAP4 perfectly via the Orange network. So, Orange do and always have supported IMAP4, they just don't know they do. Utter madness !!!

Anyway, if anyone can shed any light on fixing the C500 IMAP bugs, I would really appreciate it. The C500 is a dinky little PDA phone which could be really useful...if it worked properly !

Thank you in advance for your help.

best regards

John