Android app mangles text when editing
 

I use the Fastmail android app on my phone (Moto G4, Android 7.0). Mostly it works fine, but if I edit text that I am composing (i.e. move the caret back into text I've already written and make changes), it goes badly wrong, corrupting surrounding words when inserting characters, to the point where it is impossible to continue editing. Adding text at the end of a paragraph seems ok.

E.g. compose new message, write "test message", then position cursor before the first character and type "real" followed by a space. About 30% of the time this corrupts the text, eg to "*messReal Testage". The corruption seems much more likely and more severe if I use the 'glide writing' Google keyboard feature were you trace out words without lifting your finger, but I also see it when doing normal tapping. I think it's always when inserting a space.

I'm using the default Google keyboard, in UK English. I've been experiencing this for many months, and my wife also gets it. I've only ever noticed it in the Fastmail app. For example, there is no problem composing text in Chrome. Though my wife says it affects the Facebook app too.

Has anyone else experienced this - in Fastmail or any other app? (I realise it might not be the Fastmail app's fault - though as I said personally I've only ever seen it there)

I don't have an Android device (only iOS devices). I recommend that you file a Fastmail support request concerning this topic.

Bill

I ran a test of the compose screen on my
- Samsung Galaxy S7 (Android of course)...

no problem for me, text is typed just fine and moving the cursor around and adding more text did not cause any corruption for me...

On my two different Android (6.0.1) devices I see a similar text mangling behaviour in all applications but with the Swiftkey keyboard. The default keyboard behaves impeccably.

BTW I do not have the FM application, so I'm not sure this clarifies the matter at all.

I had faced this issue with default keyboard (Google) and SwiftKey. However, I installed BlackBerry Keyboard from the Cobalt Manager and this issue is resolved completely. I think it had to do with the bugs in the keyboard rather than the app itself.

Let me know if you need any help with the BlackBerry Keyboard (which works almost perfectly) instead.

(My device- MotoG5 with Android 7).

[quote=sebwills;603544]I use the Fastmail android app on my phone (Moto G4, Android 7.0). Mostly it works fine, but if I edit text that I am composing (i.e. move the caret back into text I've already written and make changes), it goes badly wrong, corrupting surrounding words when inserting characters, to the point where it is impossible to continue editing. Adding text at the end of a paragraph seems ok. /[quote]

Yes, got problem too. Only with FastMail app - gesture typing worked fine in other apps, although I don't have Facebook app. Typing email replies was tedious, particularly going back to a previous word to edit/add something. Happened with default android keyboard US or UK, and with SwiftKey. Gesture typing seemed too fast for the fastmail app 😕

I uninstalled the FM app. Now using web app only. Don't get email notifications, so others may not want that, but it's much faster on my moto g4+ with 2GB RAM. And RAM usage is way down. FM app would creep up to over 200MB. Web app Max 20MB. That said, my phone's total RAM doesn't get over 1.3GB, so I have no idea what's the issue.

Sorry about the Quote in my above post.

Forgot to add that I haven't had one instance of the mangled text when using FM as the web app, regardless of whether I use default or other keyboards, with or without gesture typing.

Just posted about this
 

Aha! others also seeing this issue.

I just posted about it (sorry, searched forum and didn't see your post 'til now). Here's my thread:
http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=72975

And I included a video of the problem, on my Google Pixel XL.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/U7GDoay9MKMzNoUH2

It does seem related to the Google Keyboard, but it also seems unique to Fastmail. I can't change keyboards easily on the Pixel and don't really want to because I do love the GBoard in every other app.

Help!

Thanks,
<M>

Thanks to everyone for your responses. Helpful to know others are seeing the problem.

@radtux - could you explain how to get the Blackberry keyboard? Is it the 'Keyboard for Blackberry' app? That didn't look quite right from the description.

@mgg - interesting that you see it on a Pixel. Everyone who has the problem on this thread so far has had a Moto so I had been thinking it was something Moto-specific.

I did report the issue to Fastmail (ticket 368552) - the agent said they couldn't reproduce on their phone and suggested reinstalling the app, which I just tried - no improvement. I will follow up and point them to these threads.

I am coming to the conclusion that I should just abandon the app and use the web interface or another mail app. :( Getting frustrated with slow inbox loading and lack of offline access anyway....

Thanks. I just submitted another bug report along with a link to my video, and referenced your ticket number as well.

Unfortunately I can't use other apps for email because I make heavy use of folders and they don't handle them properly (eg. respect fastmail's hierarchy/ordering).

I'll try the web interface again -- I used to use it, can't remember why I switched to the app.

<M>

Probably because the app has push - so you get notificaitons, but the web interface does not.

I find if I close FM on my phone, and then open it before I read or try to send an email, it more often behaves properly. Otherwise it usually hangs trying to connect to the server. I have also experienced the whacky/mangled text issue.

(Galaxy S6)

Myeah.... but that's not it -- we've turned off push and instead use the 'Pushover' service to create custom push notifications for only very specific emails; otherwise it would be craziness. Just tried the web app, and one of the other benefits is you can create shortcuts on the home page(s) to specific mailboxes or activities like 'compose'. That's actually great, because one of my peeves about the app was that it could not be set to open to a specified folder, only to the generic 'inbox'.

Maybe this will work better all around....

Fastmail support replied to my follow-up. They say:

As well as suggesting using the web interface, they also pointed out that if you change the settings to compose plain text rather than rich text messages then the issue doesn't occur. (Settings -> Mail Preferences screen, under the Writing section.). Useful to know.

I just tried this, and the problem remained, on my Pixel XL. Just FYI.

<M>

Yes, I tried using plain text (a while back) when I was using the FM app. The text was still getting mangled on my Moto.

Thanks. Good to know that FM have identified the issue as relating to their Crosswalk framework.

Also, Moto and Pixel phones both use pure Android (well, close to it for Moto). Whereas Samsung has a heavy skin. Could this be why Samsung people not getting the mangled text? So I wonder what tweak Samsung has done to Android that prevents the mangled text, when FM suggest that Crosswalk is the problem?

Using the webapp on my Android browser was working well. However, for the last few weeks I have been using an open-source app on F-Droid, called "WebApps Version v2.12.1".

Only works with https sites. You can save or remove any WebApp to the app's bookmarked list. You can also create shortcuts for use on the home screen. The app blocks 3rd party requests by default (can be changed on a site by site basis). You can choose what User Agent you want and change the font size, both specifically for each webapp.

I have created separate webapps for my Calendar, Inbox, Folders other than Inbox, Files and Notes.

Some Android launchers allow you to specify swipe actions. Eg my dock has a shortcut for my Inbox webapp. I set a swipe down action on this shortcut to open Notes from FM. In my app list, I set a swipe action for my File Manager icon, which opens the FM Files webapp.

Not suitable for those who want notifications of emails arriving!!

This app allows me to get an FM-app-like experience but with more customisation + shortcuts.

When I switched to plain text (on Moto) the mangling behaviour seems different in exactly when it occurs, but I agree it still happens.

On Google/LG Nexus 5, this mangling of text happens all the time and has been a constant curse since I have used the Android Fastmail app, years now.

When replying, or when composing a new email, it makes text corrections and insertions a nightmare. For anyone who hasn't actually seen this buggy behaviour, it is hard to describe how bizarre and unpredictable it is. Character insertions happen at unexpected places away from where you are typing, words get oddly mangled, lines get broken, and there is no way to undo the corrupted changes. I frequently have to abandon the message and start again.

This combined with the fact that the app takes 10 seconds of displaying wavy patterns to start up, and frequently another 10 seconds to access and display an updated inbox, makes it the slowest app on the handset.

Another oddity is that the Fastmail Android app, both via mobile connection and wifi connection, is frequently inexplicably unable to connect to its server. I get "cannot connect to server - retryring" ALL the time while other apps on the handset can connect and function perfectly normally. The "cannot connect" can persist for as long as minutes at a time.

In comparison, the Gmail app opens in about a second and the inbox updates a second or two after that.

The final curse of the Fastmail Android app is that, in marginal signal areas, it erroneously reports that the login password is wrong and demands I re-enter it. This happens all the time when driving in marginal signal areas, and what fun it is to be at some rural truckstop trying to enter a 30-character master password on the handset. It assumes that a failure to log in means that the password (which has been correct for ages) is suddenly wrong. Gmail never does this, not once.

I don't often speak up and I have one very specific use case which keeps me using the Fastmail service for a small proportion of email tasks, but frankly I suffer and fume all the time. I can see that the FM team tries and does a lot of work, but the overall functionality is just way behind the big providers and that's what we need to accept in order to use it.

A fix/workaround that works for me (for this single problem only) is to close the App in Android, then re-open it. The hanging "trying to connect to server" goes away when I do this.
Might work for you - I'd be interested to know.
Galaxy S6, Android 7.0

Thanks for your suggestion. I do try that and sometimes it fixes it and sometimes not. I observe this "trying to connect" all the time and really cannot correlate the presence nor absence of this problem with anything else that's happening at the time. I frequently have to kill the Fastmail Android app - it often freezes and totally stops responding - sometimes I even reboot the handset. This app seriously needs replacement.

FM claims that the service is "fast". I never experience "fast", not in the app, not in the clunky webmail interface.

OK, i just found this - since the search function doesn't work here - and i just posted about the mangled email text when trying to correct too. What ive been forced to resort to is typing out my email elsewhere and then cut and pasting it into the fastmail app. As for using a different email app to get my fastmails, so far I've been unsuccessful in making any work. Try another keyboard like the default or blackberry (if i can find it)? Maybe. Or maybe I'll just go back to a free email.

I switched to the Samsung default keyboard. So far it seems OK.

me too!
 

I've been experiencing this problem, too, on an S8 using Google keyboard. (I find the Samsung keyboard of exceedingly poor quality.) I don't see this in other apps, though on a web page text form field, I did see behavior that reminded me of it but was fundamentally different (at least it seemed to me). Switching (long-press on spacebar) to the Samsung keyboard does resolve the problem. I suppose this is a workaround.

I've also seen the issue where the connection to the server inexplicably hangs, AND the issue where it demands a password (very annoying!) afterward.

Thread on same subject:

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=73230


I don't recall having a problem like this when Fastmail was free. I always used free emails before, up until now, including good old free Fastmail. Can someone remind me why I am now paying for email? I forgot.

As I mentioned before, the best email ever for me was the original old time Yahoo before they started messing with it. Free Fastmail seemed functional and simple and FAST too, but I only used to use it as a peripheral email, and now that one is gone. I was using Outlook email before and then I got mad at it and came here, but I'll probably go back to one of the free ones. Mostly I'm on Android these days.

I'm not really contributing to any solution here, other than to say I find the FastMail mail editor really capricious (hey, there's a good word!). When composing or editing a mail, in a browser interface on my PC, I find it spontaneously throws in <CR><LF> between words, in the middle of words, anywhere. If I backspace to erase one of these, it will almost certainly insert another elsewhere in the text.

I'm sure it wasn't always as bad as this. I've certainly become much more conscious of these rogue <CR><LF>'s over the past 6 months or so.

It got so bad that I started composing emails in a text editor and then copy-and-paste to Fastmail. I've now reached the stage where I've bought a different mail client, simply to use as the front end to Fastmail's services. Now that is crazy! But it is rock-solid when editing, and offers a far greater flexibility for formatting and organising text than Fastmail's editor ever did.

I do very limited work with Fastmail in Android (mainly reading rather than writing) so I'm not aware of how well or badly it performs there.

I used to be a strong advocate of Fastmail, but somehow I get the impression that it's getting a little frayed at the edges and not keeping up development with sufficiently innovative ideas to maintain its reputation.