Problems with Browser-based Gmail?

[yacht_boy]

Hi there-this is my first post! Happy to see there's such a big Pre community already.

I love this phone, but I hate the built-in gmail app. It's astonishingly bad, and the complaints about it are well-documented elsewhere on this forum. So I figured I would just use Gmail's normally awesome mobile gmail page on the browser, with the page bookmarked and listed on the launcher so it's always just 2 clicks away, until Palm fixes the native app.

But I'm having major issues with Gmail on the browser.

Issue 1--Archiving from within a message. If I open a message to read it and then hit the archive button, nothing happens. I can tap away to my heart's content, even make the button really, really big on the phone screen, but nothing ever happens to the screen. Oddly, if I close the app and reopen it, the message will often be archived. I just can't get the screen to do anything.

Issue 2--Archiving from the inbox using checkboxes. I can make a message archive from the inbox by checking the checkbox and then touching archive. But instead of showing me my new inbox, the screen comes up with just the top bar showing the Google logo and the Gmail/Calendar/Docs/More links and nothing else. It's completely blank underneath. If I refresh the screen, the inbox shows up with the message archived.

Issue 3--Scrolling down. When I first load Gmail in the browser, I can scroll through my inbox without a problem. But after I reload the screen (see issue #2), if I scroll down past what I can see on the screen, there is just grayness. The bottom message doesn't even render properly, so that lines of text are cut in half horizontally.

I have some similar issues with rendering using Google Reader, but nothing as bad as this. I live and work out of my Gmail and really need a working solution!

I've tried using every conceivable address to access gmail, from gmail.com to m.gmail.com to mail.google.com to mail.google.com/mail/x to gmail.com/mobile...nothing works. I've also tried restarting the phone, closing all cards, etc.

Anyone having similar issues? Is this a glitch in my phone? A problem with the browser? Any solutions?

Thanks!

Jason

[ryran]

You've tried using every conceivable address, eh?
So, just to confirm: you HAVE tried using normal desktop gmail on your Pre, right?
(After ten minutes of playing with the native app and the mobile version when I first got my Pre, I just bookmarked the full version.)

[yacht_boy]

yes, I've tried just entering gmail.com. Just tried it again to be sure. It just takes me to the mobile gmail window--I can't get to the "real" gmail from the pre. And from the mobile gmail, no matter how I get there, I get the same set of problems every time.

[moserjj]

i get the "webkit" formatted gmail on my phone when accessing just gmail.com from the browser. at the bottom of the page, you can probably switch between the mobile and full versions too

[yacht_boy]

Thanks for the reply. Good tip with the ability to switch to the regular gmail at the bottom of the page.

I did that and I can use regular gmail fine, but now the problem is that even in landscape view the text is too small to read, so I have to stretch it open and scroll around. Hardly ideal.

Am I the only one who's wickedly disappointed in the gmail integration in this phone? Feels like I have 3 choices--bad (pre's built-in gmail), good but broken (mobile gmail), and good but too small to read (desktop gmail).

Anyone else having problems with mobile gmail (aka "webkit" formatted gmail)?

Anyone have a potential fix for the webkit gmail issues?

Thanks,

Jason

[ajalota]

I'm disappointed as well. It works fine on the iPhone. The trick is to hit "reload" after you hit archive, and it works fine. See issues here:

Browser issues with certain pages - webOS Software - Palm Support Community

Using the full-version of the site isn't a good solution; the mobile-formatted ones are much more usable.

[yacht_boy]

Hitting reload doesn't work--it only reloads about the first 5 messages and if I scroll down it's cut off. I'm sort of glad other people are struggling with this because it gives me hope it might get fixed. Of course, I wish it worked the way it was supposed to in the first place...

[Brasado]

Don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I am very happy with Web version of gmail.
I was going to start with Push Mail, but this Web solution is working great for me. I will grant you that you have to experiment with the app, to make it work like you want it, but after a short while I find it works very, very well!

[yacht_boy]

I think that it works for some people and not for others, which is odd. My problems with the web-based GMail are there 100% of the time and are always exactly the same--it's not a question of experimentation, my setup has real verifiable bugs. I'm not sure if there is some subset of users that has this problem...seems very odd.