I use my XDA II to check my work emails which are in a POP3 account (connecting over GPRS when I'm out and about). This works ok, but...
What I find strange is that at each connection it seems to go through every single message on the server regardless of whether (1) the message is already downloaded or (2) it is several days old.
This is incredibly slow and expensive when you are getting about 300 messages a day.
(To expand on this, assuiming I get 300 messages a day and set the email to download messages only from the last 3 days, and only to download the first 3kb of each message - on each connection the mail client still works its way through all messages on the server, which could be about 1500, taking about 1 second for each one. Using GPRS monitor I see I use something like 700kb - 1Mb on each connection. Crazy! :shock: )
I notice other email clients, such as nPOP are able to simply check and download new messages on each connection. (using about 15kb or so a time) So why cant the inbuilt email program do this?? (I don't want to use nPop for various reasons).
Any hints or ideas would be much appreciated. :?:
I feel your pain. I tried setting up my yahoo mail using the internal pop account as well. It would always have to refresh over 1500 mail messages which would take up to a couple hours. I haven't been able to find much of a workaround for this either. Any suggestions?
Yes!
I have started a couple of threads on this topic, with no response. I found I got hit with over $500 in data roaming charges in Europe, doing email that with the palm operating system (snappermail) would cost me less than $50.
I think there are two solutions. One is qmail. Qmail can easily handle this problem -- you just tell it not to check mail over x days old. That is a simple program. But I favor the second solution, npop. Npop permits the same filter (I think).
I have tried these against poutlook, with phenomenal improvement. When there are 30 already downloaded messages on the server, poutlook may take 100KB just to check mail, while qmail takes 3KB and npop 1KB. The main disadvantages are
hard to use one-handed
no multipart html support in npop
can't reliably wake the wizard up to check mail automatically
but not only do these run lean, they also run 100% on the minisd card.
What won't help is flexmail -- it seems to just be a wrapper on poutlook.
I had this problem with my previous Pocket PC phones but never found a fix for it. My inbox (aka Messaging) is set to 'Connect and check for messages every 60 minutes'. Unfortunately, it does not check every hour but maybe once every few hours.
I am using SPB Pocket Plus and set the Messaging to exept from closing - so the Messaging is always up and running.
Anyone have some ideas or fix to this? My old Treo 600 was extremely reliable when it came to checking for emails every hour.
Also, does anyone know if I can change the interval from 60 minutes to 90 instead?
Thanks.
I 've noticed that too. The fact is, that if you have more then one accounts in the messaging, and you always do in fact, since ActiveSnc and SMS is always there. The software only checks email in certain interval when the appropriate account is active. So, for exmple if you have sent SMS to someone and this profile is active when you close or minimize Messaging, it will NOT check another email account
Can I just use one of these "exchange hosting" things? Or do you need both? The idea of push email appeals to me, but installing Server and Exchange or whatever on a PC doesn't.
So can I get push email for a fiver or month or whatever it costs?
Yes, of cuz! Mine is hostet by 1&1 e.g.
Given the amount of data push mail uses (typically 15-20mb per month or higher) you'd probably be just as well setting your email to check for messages at whatever frequency you require.
I don't know if anyone has done some comparisons but if you just download message headers the data load wouldn't be any higher probably, with no need of exchange server. Of course you would not have the remote device reset function, but do you need that?
not necessary. Push mail consume less than a Kb every few minutes.
A single 3G connection consume 3Kb, plus the actual check.
A normal sized box with say 20 messages a day would give 10 Mb a month with push mail.
Push mail is not necessary consuming more, and it can be enabled and disabled at will.
point taken, but he was looking to not use exchange server.
you can try with a live.mail2web.com account. You will get your own idea
First of all I apologize if this is a repost.
Apparently there are several people on here who aren't quite sure how Direct Push works, what the heartbeat is, and why you can't just set your Pocket Outlook to check for mail every 5 minutes and get the same results. I've seen several posts with people claiming they did this and accomplished the same results, but don't be fooled.
Microsoft's Direct Push doesn't check for e-mail every 5 minutes. It doesn't check for e-mail every minute, and in fact, it doesn't check for e-mail at all.
Taken from:
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials...ng-Part1-Microsoft-DirectPush-technology.html
The cool thing about the DirectPush technology is that it maintains an HTTPS connection between the Exchange server and the mobile device, a session which is kept alive by using heartbeats. This way the Exchange server can notify a mobile device whether or not there’s a change in the associated mailbox, and if a change occurs in the mailbox, the server can initiate a synchronization. Since the device keeps an open session to the Exchange server, some of you might think this could become rather expensive. But fear not because the device simply sits there and waits for a response, it doesn’t send or receive any data when it’s in this pending state. Said in another way, no data will travel over the wire, unless a change is detected in the mailbox, or the heartbeat expires.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put differently, Direct Push is truly a push system, it doesn't query the Exchange server for e-mail but rather gives the server the ability to send the message to the device by maintaining an active data connection for listening purposes. If there's no e-mail, there's no data being sent and there's no battery being wasted.
thanks for explaining
That makes sense. So if my phone is checking every 5 minutes, it is wasting battery and data if no email is there. Whereas true push is actually only used when their is an email resulting in lower battery and data consumption. That makes a lot of sense.
One might say that battery efficience should be better with push, as long as you get mail less often than every five minutes
In our hectic society, this is not that rare. In fact most working people in the computer business (who would be the ones owning these devices) are probably getting more mail than that.
A push-event might last less time than a full-blown poll, so it's hard to measure. I didn't experience any increase or decrease in battery life-time when I switched from polling to pushing.
-J
Thanks for the explanation Glitch82, just a question:
what the f*ck is an heartbeat???
The article says:
Code:
no data will travel over the wire, unless a change is detected in the mailbox, or the heartbeat expires.
So how much data is exchanged when a heartbeat is sent, and when do heartbeats expire?
Thanks,
Isidoro
EDIT: ok, i've read the article. The heartbeats are pings sent by the ppc to the server. It is not clear how much does one ping last but it seems it should be about 15-30 minutes. Yep, direct push should be better than poutlook scheduling, if you own an Exchange Server of course.
Bye
Well jayjay brings up an interesting point. If you receive at least one message every 5 minutes, and I would assume that some folks get even more than that, then pushing would be just about as intensive as polling. However it's a bit of a gamble, I would assume that unless you're getting frequent spam that even the busiest of professionals could go for brief periods where they aren't receiving e-mail, in which case a poll would be an unneccessary waste of battery life, not to mention data usage. However as your mail volume increases it's rather obvious that no matter what system you use you're still going to be draining the battery quite frequently, so the advantage of pushing over polling with respect to battery life and data usage would diminish.
Given that scenario, one advantage to pushing would be receiving e-mail instantaneously as opposed to every 5 minutes, and that for some could be a deciding factor. Polling for messages every minute would not be as fast as pushing, which could thereotically deliver multiple messages within the time span of one minute. Under such intensive e-mail use, your battery would drain faster and you would consume more data than polling because every time you receive a message the system initiates authentication with the mail server. Polling would consume less because authentication is performed once for multiple message delivery.
Here's a couple of scenarios to illustrate the point. Both scenarios assume the same user in two parallel universes. In the first universe he's using DP with exchange and in the second he's using a 5 minute polling interval with a POP3 server. Please excuse my crude time estimates and details.
LEGEND:
"*" indicates a heavy tax on the device's battery/data in the form of data being used to authenticate your username and password for your email account.
"#" indicates an even heavier tax on the device's battery/data in the form of data being used to receive e-mail messages from the e-mail server.
Scenario 1 using pushing:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:00:03 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:00:04 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:00:06 --> 1 email message delivered
00:05:05 --> Ping sent to Exchange by device
00:10:05 --> Ping sent to Exchange by device
00:15:05 --> Ping sent to Exchange by device
00:17:15 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:17:17 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:17:18 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:17:20 --> 1 email message delivered
This is where push helps with battery life and data usage. When your e-mail usage is low, push only sends a ping every 5 minutes to keep the TCP listener socket open as opposed to a constant authentication every 5 minutes to check if new mail has arrived, as in scenario 2.
Scenario 2 using polling:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
*00:02:00 --> Device authenticates with POP3
#00:02:02 --> 1 email message delivered
*00:07:02 --> Device authenticates with POP3
00:07:03 --> No e-mail messages delivered
*00:12:03 --> Device authenticates with POP3
00:12:04 --> No e-mail messages delivered
*00:17:04 --> Device authenticates with POP3
00:17:05 --> No e-mail messages delivered
00:17:15 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
*00:22:05 --> Device authenticates with POP3
#00:22:07 --> 1 email message delivered
Under this scenario, the device is wasting precious battery life by blindly checking every 5 minutes to see if you have new e-mail. Unless you do then you're wasting your battery unnecessarily.
The next two scenarios assume heavy e-mail usage.
Scenario 3 using pushing:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:00:03 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:00:04 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:00:06 --> 1 email message delivered
00:02:15 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:02:17 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:02:18 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:02:20 --> 1 email message delivered
00:03:01 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:03:03 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:03:04 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:03:06 --> 1 email message delivered
00:04:15 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:04:17 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:04:18 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:04:20 --> 1 email message delivered
This assumes heavy usage with push. Your device is now authenticating multiple times for each message you get. Upside is, you get your e-mail quicker. Downside is, every time you authenticate and receive a message you're using up battery and data.
The last scenario assumes the exact same e-mail usage with polling at 5 minute intervals.
Scenario 4 using polling:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
00:02:15 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
00:03:01 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
00:04:15 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
*00:05:00 --> Device authenticates with POP3
####00:05:08 --> 4 email message delivered
So if you're a heavy e-mail user and use polling, you can conserve battery and data at the expense of not receiving your e-mail immediately. You can use pushing to receive e-mail immediately at the expense of battery life and data usage.
If you're a light e-mail user and use polling, you're wasting your battery life, data, and getting your messages at a possible 5 minute delay.
But the point is, if you're a light e-mail user (like me) and you use pushing, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Now, if we stick some real numbers in there maybe someone can do the math to figure out at what point exactly pushing becomes more intensive than polling.
I think this is actually a little bit wrong as a 'push' client doesn't need to re-authenticate every time it receives notification of a new message.
So the correct version would be closer to this:
Scenario 1 using pushing:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:00:03 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:00:04 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:00:06 --> 1 email message delivered
00:05:05 --> Ping sent to Exchange by device
00:10:05 --> Ping sent to Exchange by device
00:15:05 --> Ping sent to Exchange by device
00:17:15 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:17:17 --> Device alerted to new email
#00:17:20 --> 1 email message delivered
Scenario 1 using polling:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
*00:02:00 --> Device authenticates with POP3
#00:02:02 --> 1 email message delivered
*00:07:02 --> Device authenticates with POP3
00:07:03 --> No e-mail messages delivered
*00:12:03 --> Device authenticates with POP3
00:12:04 --> No e-mail messages delivered
*00:17:04 --> Device authenticates with POP3
00:17:05 --> No e-mail messages delivered
00:17:15 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
*00:22:05 --> Device authenticates with POP3
#00:22:07 --> 1 email message delivered
So in this case we've got *## for push and *****## for poll.
Scenario 2 using pushing:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:00:03 --> Device alerted to new email
*00:00:04 --> Device authenticates with Exchange
#00:00:06 --> 1 email message delivered
00:02:15 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:02:17 --> Device alerted to new email
#00:02:20 --> 1 email message delivered
00:03:01 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:03:03 --> Device alerted to new email
#00:03:06 --> 1 email message delivered
00:04:15 --> 1 email message received by Exchange server
00:04:17 --> Device alerted to new email
#00:04:20 --> 1 email message delivered
Scenario 2 using polling:
00:00:01 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
00:02:15 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
00:03:01 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
00:04:15 --> 1 email message received by POP3 server
*00:05:00 --> Device authenticates with POP3
####00:05:08 --> 4 email message delivered
And here they would be exactly the same with *####.
Now the case were polling DOES win over push is when you very very rarely get email for two reasons:
1) Push does require you to 'ping' the server from time to time and whilst this requires almost no data / battery it does add up over a long period.
2) If the connection is lost because you went through a tunnel or something then you will need to completely re-start the connection which does involve a new authentication.
Now that's definitely interesting.
I got a question here, I just signed up for an account with mail2web.com a free exchange hosting service and I setup the device to sync with it, I also set that the device will sync when "As itemsarrive", so now I sent my self an email and I only get it on my device about 3-4 minutes later some times right away but sometimes few minutes apart, now my question is, do I have to keep GPRS always on ? Does this happen to the free service mail2web ? Or is this a normal thing what Im seeing ?
Main reason I love push is that my mobile phone gets the mail long before it arrives in outlook, which is polling. I like to know the minute I get some mails.
Then at night, when I receive the occasional spam through the filter, it irritates me that the phone always beeps loudly each time. I am used to it, but I keep thinking it wakes up my gf.
I would like to have some kind of "only push during the day" -feature or time-dependent adjustment of sms arrival sound I can't turn the volume of completely, since the phone is also my alarm clock. I guess I could turn the device off completely (and hope that the alarm wakes it up). I am just too used to the S100 that I had before this, which didn't have any "off-mode".
-J
Re: Why Direct Push uses less battery than check every X min
GliTCH82 said:
First of all I apologize if this is a repost.
Apparently there are several people on here who aren't quite sure how Direct Push works, what the heartbeat is, and why you can't just set your Pocket Outlook to check for mail every 5 minutes and get the same results. I've seen several posts with people claiming they did this and accomplished the same results, but don't be fooled.
Put differently, Direct Push is truly a push system, it doesn't query the Exchange server for e-mail but rather gives the server the ability to send the message to the device by maintaining an active data connection for listening purposes. If there's no e-mail, there's no data being sent and there's no battery being wasted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have a look at this article:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5915
jayjay said:
Main reason I love push is that my mobile phone gets the mail long before it arrives in outlook, which is polling. I like to know the minute I get some mails.
Then at night, when I receive the occasional spam through the filter, it irritates me that the phone always beeps loudly each time. I am used to it, but I keep thinking it wakes up my gf.
I would like to have some kind of "only push during the day" -feature or time-dependent adjustment of sms arrival sound I can't turn the volume of completely, since the phone is also my alarm clock. I guess I could turn the device off completely (and hope that the alarm wakes it up). I am just too used to the S100 that I had before this, which didn't have any "off-mode".
-J
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you can trade the inconvenience of waking up to spam at 3 AM with the inconvenience of remembering to hit the Comm button to turn off Direct Push right before bed, and then remembering to turn it back on in the morning.
That's actually a dilemma. Maybe you could set an alarm to remind you to turn Direct Push on.
Actually, in ActiveSync you can set a synchronization schedule. Have you looked into that?
Re: Why Direct Push uses less battery than check every X min
Southern_Man said:
Have a look at this article:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5915
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very informative, thanks for the link!
Well I dont know about the battery part, but Im using directpush and now its all working fine, but the battery goes down like crazy I took the phone of the charger this morning at 7:30am its now 10:10am and the battery is at 96% I didnt not make any phone calls or browes the net just got 6-8 emails and thats it, so thats kind of pretty bad for the battery life.....
No one eleses battery dies taht fast ?
btw its 11:50 and the battery is at 84% I havent made 1 phone call yet or browsed anything just got bunch more emails maybe like 10 more or so
so total 20 email and battery is down 16% hmmmm wonder if the checking every 20 minutes is better
Hey guys, I'm coming in to this thread late but I thought I'd bring something to y'alls attention.
I'm a Sprint 6700 user (HTC Apache) and have been experimenting with Direct Push with a free Exchange account at mail2web.com. Here's what I've discovered:
For some reason, when connected to mail2web there is data activity occurring every 60 seconds. This happens consistently, and is repeatable. When not connected to mailweb, OR when connected to another Exchange server (such as 4smarphone.com) this 60-second data activity does NOT occur.
I've tested this thoroughly, and have confirmed with many other 6700 users as well as Verizon Treo700w users that they are ALL seeing the same behavior. I brought this to mail2web's attention and went through their support channels. Unfortunately, they were never able to recreate this and therefore can't do anything about it. I don't think the problem is with Exchange, as the heartbeats seem to be happening every 8 minutes or so like they're supposed to. (we analyzed the ActiveSync logs to confirm this) I think the issue might be with their firewall timing out or something, but if course that's a guess.
You can see this data activity happening just by staring at the "connection arrows" at the top of the display. Like clockwork, they go from gray to white (inactive to active) every 60 seconds. No other apps are using my data connection in the background, and as soon as I disconnect from mail2web the data arrows stay gray virtually indefinitely.
This causes major problems for 2 reasons: First, it's a huge drain on the battery. In my informal tests I saw a fully charged device drain down to 50% battery over the span of 7 hours doing absolutely nothing except sitting their connected to mail2web. (no emails being received either) These same tests when connected to 4smartphone caused the battery to be at 90% after the same span of 7 hours.
The other problem is that if you're a CDMA user and are not in an EVDO area, calls go directly to VM when there's data activity happening.
I'm not sure if this of any interest to anyone here, but I thought I'd bring it up because I believe it's a real problem and if enough people complain to mail2web then maybe they'll do something about it. Thanks for reading.
Thanks eagle63, this actually explains alot.
Which is why I use AUTD (Always Up To Date).
With the exception of people who get emails every two minutes, AUTD is very efficient, not requiring any connection until an email is recieved.
Basically, what it does (if you don't already know) is sends a "control" SMS to you that triggers ActiveSync to connect and get your update.
Exchange sends an SMS message when there is a change. No new emails, no connections, no data tranferred at all.
Takes 3 to 10 seconds from recieving the email to it showing up on my phone. Of course, your plan had better cover the SMS messages you are going to get...
Needs extra service text messages
Without a doubt. If you get alot of emails, you will use alot of SMS messages.
You can tell your phone to only check during peak hours and define when that is (times and weekdays)
But it does get me my mail right away before my rom supports DirectPush. Unlimited SMS adds $15 to my plan. For me, its worth it.