S603rd email : auto notification vs. auto retrieva...

Question

well, it seems that lots of people have asked about these features and many have attempted to answer, but as of yet i cannot find a single, coherent description that agrees with empirical testing.
background:
i'm using the built in mail client on a nokia n95. after setting up a mail account, consider the two options for automatically alerting the user to new emails: Notification, or Retrieval.
RETRIEVAL is pretty straight forward. this works fine on both IMAP and POP3 accounts, and simply sets up the device to poll for emails now and then. this is JUST like a desktop mail client.
NOTIFICATION, on the other hand, seems to be an implementation of either IMAP IDLE or OMA EMN. which is it?
many people have noted that the n-series devices are not intended to replace other devices that provide push email. email notification, however, appears to do just that - though in a broken sort of way.
i have been able to successfully receive push email for a short period of time using NOTIFICATION. this is how it seems to work for me:
1. it only works with IMAP accounts, so far as i can tell - and obviously i've turned on email notification (i Auto-Update, not "only in home network")
2. it may require that your IMAP server supports IMAP IDLE or OMA EMN - or possible some other protocol?
3. i connect to my account, which retrieves headers for new mails
4. i exit my mail application
5. i wait a few seconds for the packet connection to drop, then wait a couple minutes longer for good measure
6. i use gmail on my laptop to send an email to the account used on my n95
7. within a minute my n95 beeps and i see a notification that i've got "1 new email" on my standby screen (it's a popup, like you get for new SMS messages)
8. i click "show" or open messaging and i see that i've received an email header without connecting manually to my mail account.
9. a second mail sent to the account used by my n95 does nothing - push email only works for the first notification, and only works if there is a new email within about 30 minutes of step #4.
can anyone explain this to me? it's possible that having another mail client connected to my imap account will prevent mail notification as well, so if you try testing it, try the test without another client connected.
i've seen some comments online regarding a WAP push notification...perhaps this is also operator specific? i am using AT&T in MA, USA.
does anyone have any information regarding how email notification is supposed to work? what specs were (at least attempted to be) followed when implementing email notification on this mail client?
nokia reps out there - is there a reason why this feature is so ambiguously described? perhaps it's an incomplete feature?
anyone with some time on their hands able to verify my findings?
i look forward to your responses,
-jared
N95-1 ---> N97-NAM ---> N900 ---> E7-00 + N900 (I use them both)
(N95 was pretty good, N97 had potential but utterly failed to deliver, N900 is absurdly good. Those of you wondering, "should I try N900/Maemo/MeeGo"? The answer is a resounding YES)

Answer 1

Maybe you can check the post :
/discussions/board/message?board.id=messaging&message.id=7080&query.id=297096#M7080
It mentioned about (by karkowski)
The problem can be each time manually solved as follows:
The automatic email retrieval must be switched off completely (and the email application closed), and then turned on again. After that the notifications are back. Till the next switch-off...