The application Email (process com.android.email) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again

by World Wide Ed on Thursday, January 14, 2010

It appears as though this is a common issue for many frustrated Android users out there, so I’m posting what I did – which actually worked! – in the hopes that it will help at least a few of you out.

A Little Background:
purchased the Droid on opening day, but never set up my Exchange email until recently (more than two months after the fact). Just never had the need really. After setting it up, it ran pretty smoothly for several weeks. I’ve (apparently) been fortunate enough to not run into the dreaded “The application Email (process com.android.email) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” error message… Until Now!

The Problem:
From what I’ve read, the root of the issue is a bug in the Email app/program related to unparsable email headers. When you get an email with such headers (which sorta explains why my email was working fine for a while), you will get the error message above.

The Non-Solutions:
- Killing the app (with programs like Advanced Task Killer Free) and restarting the app doesn’t work.
- Rebooting and restarting the app doesn’t work.
- Killing the app PLUS Rebooting and then restarting the app doesn’t work. Trust me, I’ve tried several times.
- Attempting to kill the app in “Manage applications” doesn’t work (well sorta) because it’s not readily listed and not easy to find (see solution below).

The Solution:
1 ) Go into your email from your desktop client and delete or file away the latest emails that you suspect may’ve started to cause this issue. (I can’t confirm whether or not this step is actually necessary, but I did it anyway to be safe.)
2 ) From your home screen, press the tab on the bottom and go to Settings.
3 ) Select Applications
4 ) Select Manage Applications
5 ) Hit your Menu option/button (the one with four lines usually between the Back/Return button and the Home button)
6 ) Select Filter
7 ) Select Running in the Filter Options pop-up menu.
8 ) Scroll down and select Email. (If it’s not in the list, you probably killed it. Go back and start it first and then return to step 1.)
9 ) In the Email app’s Application Info screen, press the Clear data button. (Be advised that this will essentially clear all of your account info from the Email app, causing you to have to re-set everything up again like your login name, password, server names, etc. The exact prompt says, “All of this application’s data will be deleted permanently. This includes all files, settings, accounts, databases and so on.” Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean it will delete your emails on the server.)
10 ) Open up the Email app again and it will prompt you to set everything up again (log in name, password, servers, etc.). Walah! The error message should now be gone.

Some Linkage:
* Google Code string
* Motorola Support Forum string

Hope this helps y’all! Happy Droiding!

{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }

Sarah January 21, 2010 at 10:21 pm

Thanks! I just encountered this problem after having the phone for 3 days…and it’s helped me! My email started working again right after I made any incoming mail go to my Gmail archives instead of to the inbox on the server.

World Wide Ed January 22, 2010 at 11:17 am

Awesome, glad it helped Sarah! :)

WillReadmore January 26, 2010 at 9:16 am

I deleted recent email, cleared data and set up my account again.

This didn’t help me at all. Com.android.email restarted fine, but went to it’s crashing behavior almost immediately.

If the problem has to do with something someone sent to me, I need to know what can’t be safely sent to me by email anymore.

John January 26, 2010 at 12:25 pm

FYI: On my Nexus One, I was able to solve the problem by deleting the offending email on a computer based client, and then restarting the Email app on Android. I did not need to apply the clear data process, or re-enter my account info.

Thanks!

-John

Dave January 27, 2010 at 5:25 pm

This advice works!!! Thank you.

World Wide Ed January 28, 2010 at 2:14 pm

WillReadmore, your issue sounds a bit different than the rest of us if, as you mentioned, com.android.email restarted fine. Maybe you can temporarily archive all email in your inbox and bring them back one (or several) at a time so see which one is the offending message?

World Wide Ed January 28, 2010 at 2:15 pm

Cool, good to know John! Thanks for the feedback!

World Wide Ed January 28, 2010 at 2:16 pm

No problem Dave. Happy to hear it! :)

WillReadmore February 15, 2010 at 7:52 am

All these ideas work to get email up and running again. The question is for how long.

I tried moving all mail to a different folder and then bringing stuff back to see what does the deed. What I’ve found is that some spam with graphics, buttons, etc. will prevent my droid from reading email.

I can’t stop all spam from getting through the filters. So, if I’m on a trip or whatever, I can’t count on receiving my email on my Droid.

Disappointing.

World Wide Ed February 16, 2010 at 1:53 pm

Agreed WillReadmore, but that’s more of an “app” fixing issue more so than something any of us in this thread can control. Thanks for your feedback!

John April 14, 2010 at 7:05 am

In my scenario, the user had an apostrophe in their email address. The mentioned steps reset the email account info but the error would reappear every time I entered the users info again. I created an additional email address for them in active directory without the apostrophe.

When I tried the new address it worked like a charm. Droid no likey apostrophe but the blackberrys the user had before had no problem with it.

World Wide Ed April 14, 2010 at 10:01 am

Great good-to-know info John. Thanks!

Frank April 23, 2010 at 3:06 pm

This is not working for me. It only crashes on this email account, I am not sure why. It was working up to an hour or so ago. I have done what was stated in the solution to no success.

Jonathan May 9, 2010 at 10:39 pm

This is what worked for me :

Clear the Email data on the phone – see instructions above
For a Gmail account erase the account from your phone (If the app crashes all the time some slight of hand might be necessary, but it is possible) , now access your account through the desktop – Click on Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP ->In the IMAP access section click on Configuration instructions -> Under mobile devices select Android.

Now set up the account in your phone MANUALLY and try to connect.

I also made sure to remove any labels in my account that had special characters (like non English letters) and I archived all the messages before setting the account again on my phone.

World Wide Ed May 11, 2010 at 12:33 am

Wow Jonathan. That seems rather excessive, but glad to hear that it worked for you!

Josh May 28, 2010 at 6:28 am

I had this problem too, narrowed it down to a single email, but couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong. however, on the inbox on my computer (Apple Mail – Snow Leopard) to “to” listing for that email (it had multiple recipients) had one of the recipient’s email addresses double listed, next to eachother like this . I wonder if that was the parse error. I’ve asked the sender to double check their address book.

World Wide Ed June 2, 2010 at 11:25 am

Good tips Josh. Thanks!

JMartin July 13, 2010 at 9:41 am

Unfortunately, I have this problem, and I’m unable to use the suggested fix. I have an Incredible, and when I start the Mail app, I immediately get the error and a button to force close the app, so it won’t stay open at all. And it appears that it needs to stay open to clear the cache, because if I go into the Mail app settings, the Clear Cache button is grayed out.

World Wide Ed July 17, 2010 at 9:10 pm

Have you tried opening your email from a desktop or laptop computer first and cleaning up your mail JMartin? Then, if you launch your mail from your Incredible, it should work… as long as you deleted the faulty email in question. Good luck!

Jim August 5, 2010 at 2:41 am

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve had my android for two weeks before experiencing this problem. I have no tech skill whatsoever so I was very worried when this started happening. Your fix worked for me!

World Wide Ed August 22, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Great to hear Jim! Have fun with your Droid! :)

tamcamry August 29, 2010 at 5:04 pm

I think this has been asked prior, but is this something that I’ll have to keep doing. It’s not too big a deal, but this isn’t a problem with Blackberry or iPhone. Their email interfaces just work.

World Wide Ed August 29, 2010 at 11:11 pm

Not quite sure tamcamry. I did it once and the issue never came back. Then again, perhaps the “unparsable email headers” thing just did not come up again for me(?)…

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