PSA: Apple Mail Bugs Can Lead to Data Loss in macOS Catalina

[NervousFish2]

Haven't had this problem. But one GREAT thing about macOS Catalina mail is that it is compatible (finally!) with Microsoft's Modern Authentication. The problem would not occur on iOS. But, on Mojave, if you were running two boxes with the same email MS Office 365 email account, with modern authentication, the accounts would self-delete. The only way around it was to turn off keychain on both boxes. Very frustrating. I am SO glad that is fixed now.
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It's those rose gold Macs & iPhones. The masses can't get enough.

hahaha... "the masses" ... so, you're not one of the masses? One of the "sheeple"? The person the advertiser loves most is the person who thinks advertising doesn't work on them

 

[NaimNut]

Maybe I'll go back to Fastmail.

Light & tight.

 

[cppguy]

Sounds like last year's Windows update that wiped out my Documents folder. I've never touched the Mail app though.

 

[NaimNut]

I sent an email to Tim Cook demanding to know why Apple Mail is losing email. He hasn't responded yet.

Maybe you will get a heartfelt response.

From: Steve Jobs
To: Chelsea Isaacs
Subject: Re: Mr. Jobs - Student Journalist Concerned about Apple's Media Relations Dept.
Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry.
Sent from my iPhone

 

[doboy]

Good practice to wait few weeks before updating

 

[donjo]

My search function no longer works

 

[Kubat]

Makes me wonder if people at apple working on this software got their positions because of their merits, skills and competence, or are they there just to fill some diversity quota... 😜

 

[Glockworkorange]

Waiting for our resident “Keep it up Tim, you’re doing a great job!” lapdogs to chime in defending this garbage. Apple’s QC, especially with regard to OS releases has become atrocious. Sure they release updates, but these problems should not be happening in the first place. Heads should be rolling over these shoddy releases.

But never mind bugs causing data loss. The stock is up and that’s all that matters right?

This is not defendable.

What a disaster of a release cycle for all Apple OS’s

 

[schneeland]

I haven't used a Windows based operating system in many years but im curious. Does Microsoft have this many issued when a new OS or even an upgraded build is released??? I'm hesitant to do an upgrade on any Apple device 2 year or older.

I use Windows 10 for about two years now, and although I am personally not affected most of the time (my business laptop is on Windows 10 Enterprise, and we usually upgrade late), Microsoft also had a surprising amount of problems with their upgrades. Basically it seems to be a release cycle problem rather than a company problem (admittedly, Microsoft does two releases a year not one).

 

[OldeTechGuy]

So it looks like all the newbie Apple people work on MacOS now . . .

 

[ghostface147]

macOS Catalina is one OS to skip. Never read about so many bugs and other problems with a release of a fresh new macOS.

Ever heard of Cheetah? It was very rushed and Puma was quickly released to fix it. Leopard was buggy too.

 

[Hirschsprung]

The search bar in Mail 13.0 is not working

 

[JimmyHook]

So much contrived outrage lol. I’ve been rocking Catalina since the beta and it’s awesome. A vast majority of the “problems” stem from dropping antiquated 32 bit support. I deleted two games and moved on with my life lol. There are a couple of bugs from what I understand, but nothing out of the ordinary.
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The search bar in Mail 13.0 is not working

Yes it is. The correct statement is “MY search bar...”. This is what confuses me. Everyone with an issue tends to believe it’s widespread. Most little bugs are specific to an installation.

 

[now i see it]

The root rot in all these screwed up, unfinished OS releases is their annual timeline. A new OS gets pushed out the door, cockroaches & all every fall whether it's ready or not. Nobody but Apple wants annual OS updates... but the way they're doing it (messy) leaves such a bad impression on the company

 

[SorsCode]

My opinion is the software rollouts started to get worse when they opened up Beta testing to the Public. Before that everything seemed to be better. I’ll install Catalina on my MacBook Air but will wait till things are worked out before installing it on my MacBook Pro or iMac Pro.

 

[mlenger]

Unfortunately Apple has become a pathetic shadow of its former self. It’s a sad sight to see what happened to this once insanely great company. I have been an avid Apple fan for 35 years and I am an Apple developer. The lastest few OS’s have been a disgrace.

 

[MarkB786]

Come on, AAPL. What the heck.

Waiting for our resident “Keep it up Tim, you’re doing a great job!” lapdogs to chime in defending this garbage. Apple’s QC, especially with regard to OS releases has become atrocious. Sure they release updates, but these problems should not be happening in the first place. Heads should be rolling over these shoddy releases.

But never mind bugs causing data loss. The stock is up and that’s all that matters right?

AAPL price is how Tim values himself. He is out wining and dining in Eurpoe and elsewhere as this crap happens.

 

[Man on the moon]

macOS Betalina

LOL

Funniest thing i’ve read all day.

 

[GeoStructural]

Has anyone here lost any mail?

I keep getting old emails as new in the iOS app. Also sometimes impossible to mark them as read. Even getting new mail is still an issue.

 

[Ifti]

The search bar in Mail 13.0 is not working

Just tested and mine is OK......

 

[Macpro2019]

Apple was:
"It Just Works"

Apple is:
"It Works, Just…"

"It used to work."

 

[halluxsinister]

Michael Tsai, the developer of EagleFiler and the SpamSieve plug-in for Apple Mail on Mac, has written a blog post warning macOS users about potential data loss in Mail when upgrading to macOS Catalina 10.15.0 (build 19A583).

According to Tsai, he's heard from several users that updating Mail's data store from Mojave to Catalina sometimes says that it has succeeded, when in fact on closer inspection it turns out that large numbers of messages are incomplete or missing entirely.

In addition, users have reported the loss of message content when moving emails between mailboxes. From Tsai's post:
Tsai warns that these issues are particularly pernicious because users may not realize anything's wrong unless they look at affected messages or mailboxes. Since the data is synced to the server, these problems can also propagate to other computers and devices, and relying on backups is difficult because Mail data is continually changing and there's no easy way to merge restored data with messages received since the last backup.

Despite the latter risk, it's still good practice to make backups, but Tsai notes that Apple Support appears to be erroneously advising users that lost Mail data in Catalina can't be recovered from a Time Machine backup made using macOS Mojave.

According to Tsai, this is not the case: Apple Mail's File -> Import Mailboxes... menu bar option can be used to selectively import them into Mail in Catalina as new local mailboxes.

Tsai says he's unsure whether these issues are due to Mail bugs or to other factors such as problems on the Mac or with the mail server. Apple released macOS Catalina 10.15.1 beta to developers on Friday, but it's still unclear if this version resolves the Mail app bugs. Regardless, Tsai's advice to users who rely on Apple Mail is to "hold off on updating to Catalina for now."

Affected readers can find the full breakdown of the issues here. Have you had problems with Mail since updating to Catalina? Let us know in the comments below.

Article Link: PSA: Apple Mail Bugs Can Lead to Data Loss in macOS Catalina

This problem presupposes that your Mac didn’t get caught in an endless “Mojave could not be installed,” restart loop, because there’s (allegedly) not enough space free... which is pretty funny given I had over 30 GB free on the Macintosh HD internal builtin Apple-supplied SSD...

Apple pushed beta, or even alpha- quality “software” that bricks users’ devices... out to their users. Why oh why did I even try to update to this gold-plated failure?

I was lucky enough to have my old High Sierra bootable install thumb-drive laying around, so I’m just going back to that, to an era before Apple ruined it all with Mojave. Now it won’t keep pestering me about my 32 bit apps, that I will be able to use from now on, because I’m done with Apple’s garbage OS “updates”.

And that said, I’m in the market for a machine to replace this thing since I have no clue if it’s safe to use on the internet anymore since Apple won’t reveal whether they're still updating the security screw-ups they baked into the old version of the OS...

Regretting ever giving Apple even a penny.

They need that fancy new HQ they squandered a fortune on cleaned out with a firehose of all the executives behind this pivot to being a music distributor that also makes overpriced underpowered devices crippled with inadequatly-tested software.

This trip and stumble out of the gate for an Apple software launch has GOT to be embarrassing.

 

[monokakata]

Gary or Paul?

It's a Seinfeld joke. The character Newman was a mailman.

 

[riklar]

That’s why they are worth a trillion dollars... they are cheap on their resources, have everything made for the cheapest price in China, then massively inflate their RRP on products that rarely go on sale. Throw in the odd scandle to up sell new phones and tax dodging and that’s how you become a trillion dollar company.
But remember iOS and Mac OS are made by Apple themselves, and you read beta testers on here claiming how long this or that bug has existed in the beta’s and they report them, yet they are still in the final releases.. I think Apple needs to follow Google’s model, release critical updates at any point in the year, but then I’d suggest major updates once every two years, Apple can save as many penny‘s as they like then on their skeleton software staff, and possibly make products that work.

Most people don’t think about these things, but Apple will force OS upgrades onto all its customers by messages popping up or automatic updates, and then they will see these bugs.. they will certainly care about that!

All in all I fully expect that arrogant hypocrite Cook to get on stage and gloat about how many users have updated to the latest iOS and Mac OS, compared to the competition... conveniently ignoring all the bugs..

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I have upgraded to Catalina my iMac mid 2018.
Everything went well except one thing in my Mail.app:
The content of one Send folder of one my gmail accounts has vanished completely.
Of course everything is on gmail server since it is an imap account.
I have tried to erased this account and to recreate it and the server started to download the whole content of inbox folder and that of the Send folder.
When the process has been completed the whole content was inside the send folder but few minutes late all the content has beeb swallowed and the folder was empty complement.
When send mails outside the computer the mails sent successfully, but few minutes later the disappeared as well.

What can I do to convice this send folder to start to behave.

Sincerely

Riklar

 

[Babygotfont]

Can all the people defending Apple like "it's ok to brick your system it's only beta" now wake up and see Apple has a software development problem that is getting worse and worse

agreed but it speaks more to the lack of Q&A people (who typically are on the back end of software development and are the ones responsible for giving thumbs up/down) ...

one of the best moves apple could make would be to MASSIVELY invest into Q&A ... if they were to do this they'd be killing the market shares on many fronts!
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I have had no real issue with Mac OS mail in Catalina but my iCloud account on iOS13 is pretty buggy. Mail notification will alert that there is e-mail which there really is but when you open up mail there is nothing there, it might take 20 or 30 seconds to appear. Delete iCloud emails on Mac OS and they stay on the phone for a very long time. I usually have to manually delete them to clear them off the message pane. Pretty disappointed as e-mail is what I really use my devices for. Might have to switch back over to my Outlook.com address.

I took this opportunity to clean install and limit the number of applications installed on my host machine. mail is one of them ... I switched from outlook (Microsoft) to mail (apple) ... it actually FIXED a couple issues I was happening in outlook ...

I see a couple small bugs in mail (from time to time, mail launches by itself) ... I'm also a large mail user with 25+gb of mailbox content spread out throughout over 100k emails over 27 years ... and yes, I need all of them!