E55 e-mail issues and solutions.

Question

The main problem of Nokia E55 e-mail (and AFAIK generic Nokia e-mail problems) is there are too much support for email but poorly documented. I just discovered everything I'll write here by my own trying to figure out the problems. This message is also a bug report if Nokia cares.
First, there are many ways to setup an email account (or mailbox in Nokia jargon). Just to name the ones I know:
(Assumption, you got some internet connection.)
1. Go to Control panel, settings, general, personalization, one touch keys, messaging key, short press and select email setup. Then close the menu and short press the messaging one touch key. An application will start, check for connection and then asks for an email address. If you continue, you'll see that the setup options are few and useless. If you check the task manager by long pressing the menu button, you'll see a @ sign.
2. Go to menu and select email to start Email 2.1.0 application. Select "new" and settings wizard will start then it starts a screen with email on top. Then, you need to press start and it will show you some commercial (free or not, but commercial) email options together with "other" option.
2.a. If you choose any commercial email provider (e.g.. gmail) and enter your address and password, the application will "detect your email settings" which means your phone will communicate with a nokia server and the nokia server will log in for you as a man-in-the-middle. Then, the application will download a contract in your language and ask to sign it. If you don't accept see 2.b, if you accept the contract, it means the "Nokia Messaging Service" will be enabled. Nokia messaging service is hosted at http://email.nokia.com. (A very bad, confusing name) From now on, NOKIA WILL KEEP YOUR EMAIL PASSWORD (with some poor privacy act based on the unbalanced contract) and Nokia will access your mail in your name, Nokia will be able to change your email settings, Nokia will be able to delete your email messages Just like the well-known man-in-the-middle attack in crypto courses. (See TR's note of Aug 26, 2010 18:18 at http://noknok.tv/2010/05/26/how-to-set-up-nokia-messaging/)
2.b. If you decline the contract or choose "other" that Nokia doesn't know how to access your account, then the application won't enable Nokia messaging service (*) and the application will enable the email access protocols already installed on your phone. Thus, you'll access your email directly and Nokia will not keep your email password. In that option, you may need to enter more server settings. But IMHO, it worth it.
(*) Oh, yes. This is a very good point. If you're willing to use the Nokia Messaging Service but doesn't have a commercial account, you can't enable it. At least, you can't enable it as you pay. E55 includes fuzzy-lifetime service agreement. If you go directly to the site and sign up yourself online, you'll get a trial service agreement. Not the full service you've already paid. (See TR's notes above to understand what fuzzy-lifetime is. Shortly, you can enable it just once for just one person but not for each person using the same phone.)
3. This is the tricky one. I found only one way to configure my email in that way but it has the most detailed settings for your account and it connects to the server directly. Bad news is, you can set only one mailbox up with that method. Go to menu, messaging, options, settings, email, options, new mailbox, start, enter your address and password, choose imap/pop, enter server settings, save. You'll see the default mailbox box will change. (But you won't see the mailbox in the messaging application [the app we've started by selecting menu then messaging]. I don't know if this is a bug or a feature.) Suddenly, the Email 2.1.0 application will start and it will try to take the control of your mailbox. Don't let. Selecting options, exit close that application. You'll be in the messaging application's menu again. Another options, exit closes this application too, and will take you to the main screen. Now, the tricky part. If you go and check Email 2.1.0 application, you'll see your mailbox is there. If you go to the messaging application, it won't show you your mailbox. Still, if you go options, settings, email, you'll see your mailbox as the default. Ok, who cares. Now, the settings. If you shortly press the email one touch key, you'll see your mailbox in the messaging application. If you select options then Email settings you'll get hell a lot of settings to set your mailbox. This is the only way I know to see the "Email settings" menu item and set the mailbox in detail. Remember that, there are projections of these settings on the Email 2.1.0 application's menu with less options.
There may be other setups for exchange and so on but I didn't check that options. These were already enough for my brain to explode.

Answer 1

Continues...
The third solution is the native solution, I think (as it doesn't support html messages and Nokia Email 2.1.0 and Nokia messaging service are marketed to be able to read HTML messages).
Another issue of the third solution is that the settings in the native messaging application and the settings in the Email 2.1.0 are sometimes conflicting. So you need to crosscheck them after you set up.
Nokia hardly have IMAP-idle support. So, don't trust on it. The very basic example of such is, you seem to be connected with the fancy green circle at the top right but when you try to read any email, you'll be asked to connect to internet continuously and you won't be able to fetch or read the message.
I checked many IMAP server logs to realize this issue. The problem is, as Nokia doesn't keep the credentials and disconnect from the server way too early, server generally interprets it as "remote party disconnected". And if you ask to fetch something again the second time, it creates an SSL 41 error (certificate not found) and closes the connection.
(Yes, I got SSL installed in my mail server. I think nearly everybody has it in these days.)
Another thing is about the "Nokia messaging service" It has hardly any customer support and it goes offline from time to time. Sometimes, you cannot reach the server even from your PC or if you can reach, you cannot configure anything.
For example, it is possible that it creates an account for you that you aren't aware of. The account creation is automated and the username/password pair is set as the first email address you've logged in with your phone. Sometimes people are unaware of this and when they change their passwords on their accounts, their email suddenly gets disconnected. Also, sometimes they cannot remember their old passwords or their old mailboxes not in use anymore.
Second, it maps many personal data altogether, which is against privacy. I realized this issue by practice. Here is my story:
I got an mail account,say [email protected] and I created a nokia messaging service account with this email. This is normally a "trial period" subscription of which the username/password pair is identical to my mail account. Namely, [email protected] and some password. I also added my second email account, [email protected] to my nokia messaging account. During account creation, the site asked me about my phone number.
Then, I bought E55 which has lifetime nokia messaging service subscription. I switched on my brand new E55 and try to configure my email. By chance, I started with [email protected]. So, Nokia created an [email protected] nokia messaging account for me. (I realized that account creation afterwards and it was a phone-lifetime subscription.) Then, I added my second email [email protected] on my phone.
What the duck, everything was scrambled. After I realize the double Nokia messaging accounts issue, I decided to delete the old one, which was a trial. At the end, I actually got a lifetime. So I logged in to the service and cancelled my first account. What do you expect? Nokia messaging service deleted both of my accounts and all email messages from both of my phones. I was lucky that I backed them up recently. I can't imagine to lose all my business mail because of the poor and ill policies of Nokia. Moreover, now, I can't get another phone-lifetime subscription to the service in the first week of my phone. Very nice...
Still, I got the third issue. I mentioned that I was checking my servers' logs to understand what's going on. After I tried to delete one (but practically deleted both) of my nokia messaging accounts, there shouoldn't be any references to my servers. Do you think so?
These are some of the IP's trying to connect to my mail server even after the messaging accounts are deleted:
131.228.18.22
131.228.18.67
131.228.18.30
131.228.18.40
When you check them at geo locator, they're all in Finland... Very nice... The only way I found was changing all my accounts passwords to get rid of the great and fancy Nokia eavesdropping service. After that, these IP's started to try the same password to log in. Currently, Nokia is trying to log in 6 times every 15 minutes to my mail accounts. I don't know when they'll stop trying. They're like terminators, they never give up.
Advice: IF YOU EVER SUBSCRIBED TO NOKIA MESSAGING SERVICE, JUST CHANGE ALL YOUR EMAIL PASSWORDS ASAP.
The fourth issue is about the setup process again. If you connect to the internet during setting up the email (Second option above), wizard runs so slowly, because it is trying to connect to the Nokia server (to send your username and password to Nokia databases).
This is probably one of the reasons why people end up waiting for minutes and cannot get a mailbox at the end.