Empty mail after reading the 2 or 3 mail probably since version 1.5.019

[dag]

When I start the application Aquamail I can read 2 or 3 mails and then the mail are all appearing empty, just with the head of the mail (Subject, eMail from sender and date). The only way to read again a mail is to kill the application and start it again. This behavior probably appears at least since the last version 1.5.019.

It's very anoying.

Any help ?


Samsung Galaxy Note 3  SM-N9005 android 4.4.2 N9005XXUGNG1

[D-Train]

I have this exact same issue, and yes, it is annoying as hell! I have the pro version. I have cleared the app cache but maybe the database is too big?
I have it selected to download the entire message if I'm on wi-fi which I almost always am, and to only download the first 25k when on cellular. What's going on here guys? This is unacceptable! 

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, this is "unacceptable", but no-one's reported it yet... and not while 1.5 was in beta, or staged release. So I need some information.

Some things to check:

- Do you use an app called LastPass? If so, please try turning off its feature to "track logins and passwords in all apps, not just web browser".

- Do your phones / tablets have "Force GPU" enabled in System settings -> "{} Developer options"? If that section is there, and the option is on, please turn it off.

- Please try AquaMail settings -> Debug (last item in the list) -> turn on "Disable GPU acceleration".

If none of the above helps, I'll need a debug log (please see link in my signature) that captures the issue.

[D-Train]

Yes I have LastPass installed and enabled. I'll try disabling those options and see if that helps. I'll let you know if it works or not, but I'd really hate to have to disable one of my favorite apps in order to get your app to work properly. I don't really consider this a "fix".
OK, I am looking at my LastPass settings. I don't see the  "track logins and passwords in all apps, not just web browser" option, but I do see an option that says "Scan Apps for Password Fields". Is that the one I should turn off? I have it enabled now. There is also an "Edit App Associations" option. When I click on that then select Aqua Mail it says "Match Site: google.com"
Next to Google.com there is an X that I can clear. Should I do that?
Thanks.

[D-Train]

Ok Kostya,
I have tried your suggestions. I tuned off the LastPass option that I described in my last message, my phone (an HTC One M8) does not have a developer option in my settings that I can see so I cannot disable GPU acceleration. I did disable GPU acceleration in my Aqua Mail settings. Then I even restarted my phone and went straight into my mail program, went to my gmail inbox and tried viewing a message. I get nothing but a blank window and the header info. I went ahead and created a debug log file and emailed it to the address you requested. look for a message from dennis.welch1 at the same email company that you guys use, gmail. Hope you can find the bug in my log file. Thanks, Dennis

[dag]

Hi Kostya,
Sorry I forget to switch on "Notify".
I have effectively also Lastpass. I switched on for a few weeks ago, I do not remember exactly when, the Lastpass keyboard for the first time. I use normally Swiftkey + Google Voice. Today I disabled Lastpass Keyboard.
I did not found the parameter in Lastpass "track logins and passwords in all apps, not just web browser"
Force GPU was off
I disabled today the GPU acceleration in Aquamail.
And I rebooted. But it did not change. After reading a few mails, the mails are empty again, sometimes it works again, and then it is finish. I have to kill the application again.
I sent  you a debug log of my last try. I swiped thru my mails back and forward a lot of time. You should see that sometimes the mails are ok and sometime not ok.
Regards.

[dag]

One thing more. My Lastpass version is 3.3.0 Version 01.10.14 10:13  ID: iad972195d.  It could be a BETA version. I joined the beta tester end of August 2014.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Ok, so you're both using LastPass

LastPass, since mid-summer, has a feature where it tries to track and fill logins and password in all apps -- not just web browsers.

As a side effect of doing that, it breaks the Android system component that is used to render HTML content -- message content.

This is specific to Android 4.4, too, where this component has received a large update, and is very buggy.

From my point of view, there is nothing to fix.

My app is not aware of LastPass -- it deals directly with the standard Android system component that is used to display HTML on the screen.

When the LastPass feature described above is enabled, somehow it breaks this system component, and the symptom is blank message content.

I' exchanged emails to the lead developer of LastPass -- and it was a waste of time.

At first, he claimed that there must be a bug in my code, same one they've seen with other appsl -- when I asked what he thinks it might be, his response was completely nonsensical. You'd be seeing Aqua crash all the time if his assertion was true.

Then, he switched to how they use a standard Android feature to do what they do, and if this has side effects, it must be an Android bug. This doesn't help anyone either. I know that WebView in 4.4 is very buggy. Hundreds of Android developers know this. But it's their app, LastPass, that makes it really dead.

Finally, I asked AquaMail to be put on some sort of blacklist (list of excluded apps), so that LastPass would never, ever, touch my app. He said they'd do that -- but I guess they haven't.

To summarize:

My app is not aware of LastPass, does not try to do anything differently with or wtihout LastPass, and a discussion with the lead developer of LastPass ended up nowhere.

As stands, their app breaks mine, and others too (there were numerous reports in Google Play after their update...).

( Oh, and what is the meaning of managing logins and passwords inside email messages anyway? )

If LastPass breaks the HTML rendering built into the system, then they need to fix it, or if they can't, then disable the feature completely on Android 4.4.

---

And one more thing:

LastPass used to have a switch to disable this "let's mess with all other apps" feature, a few months ago, when this initially came up.

I don't use LastPass, so if things changed, and this is now always enabled (no switch anymore), or their "blacklist" doesn't work, or what... I wouldn't know.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

BTW - LastPass was updated on October 1st.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Follow-up:

I was not able to reproduce the issue myself back in mid-summer (although I got emails about it from about a dozen users) -- and still not able to now (just tried, HTC One Max).

Things to try turning off, maybe just as a test:

- LastPass settings -> turn off "Enable Fill into Apps" (I think this is the one).

- System settings -> Accessibility -> Services -> LastPass -> turn off (it will be listed there alongside TalkBack).

Please reboot the phone after changing these settings.

[dag]

I can now confirm, if I turn off only "Lastpass" in Android System settings -> Accessibility -> Services -> LastPass" and kill Aquamail, (you do not need to reboot) I can read my mails normally.

As soon as I turn ON and kill again Aquamail, I have again the same issue. I tried about 10 times to switch off/on and I had always the same behavior.

I hope we get any help, because I really like the possibilities of Aquamail.

Regards.

---

Update by Kostya Vasilyev. Adding here, as this discussion is now linked from the web site's main page (for others to find):

Another, more targeted, workaround:

LastPass | Preferences | LastPass | Edit App Associations
AquaMail, by default, is set to associate with google.com (huh?)
Remove the association and check "do not show fill window"

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Thank you.

Whatever the reasons, apps should not break other apps.

You may want to contact LastPass support, perhaps they can comment on this, and their developers can fix it.

And as a reminder -- the issue came up mid-summer, but I had no reports until the most recent LastPass update, October 1.

[dag]

Trick to have Aquamail working fine again with Lastpass.

Lastpass "System settings -> Accessibility -> Services ->" is turn ON normally.

1.   Reboot your smartphone.
2.   Open Lastpass, give your Password (my parameter disable the password after 10 minutes)
3.   Open Aquamail

This morning, 10 hours after the reboot, Aquamail is still working fine. In case I have a new problem with Aquamail I will let you know.
Thanks for any feedback about the trick.

[D-Train]

And just so others know, I also can confirm that these issues went away after I followed Kostya's suggestions, so it is definitely a Lastpass issue.
What I had to do was open lastpass, go into settings, uncheck the box that says "Enable Fill Into Apps". I also have "Enable LastPass Input Method" unchecked.
If you do these things that should keep LastPass from messing with Aqua-Mail. Thanks Kostya!

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Thank you. Yes, "fill into other apps" is the issue here -- and it works via Android accessibility services. So disabling either one essentially does the same.

---

To clarify some technical bits:

---

Android (since 4.3) has a way for applications to access window content of other apps.

The intended use case is for accessibility -- I'm sure you saw TalkBack listed on the same screen in system settings.

LastPass uses this to locate input fields and fill them in.

"Window content" includes, well, almost everything, but since Android 4.4 it also includes WebView (HTML content).

So it's like this:

LastPass <--> Android accessibility feature <-> applications including Aqua

In 4.4, WebView was updated with newer code from Google Chrome (WebKit, the actual rendering engine), and it's known to be quite buggy.

Somehow, when LastPass monitors screen content, including WebView, in all other apps, it causes WebView to get messed up.

Could be a bug in Android itself -- and if it is, they (LastPass) need to find a workaround so they don't mess up other apps.

Or could be a change in the latest version of LastPass, since there were no reports from mid-summer (when it happened initially) until their October 1 update.

Could be a combination of the two: their latest version having some innocent-looking changes, which trigger something in system code.. In this case, again, the ball is in their court.

Back in mid-summer, I asked Aqua to be excluded from "fill into apps" -- maybe this is what got broken.

In any case, I hope LastPass support and engineers can find the cause and fix it.