When I open certain emails, K-9 Mail always crashes.
But
most emails open without problems in K-9 Mail
all emails open without problems in the built-in Android email app
all emails open without problems on my desktop computer.
So there’s nothing wrong with the emails per se that are causing K-9 Mail to crash, as they open fine in all other email clients apart from K-9 Mail.
There are a relatively small number of emails that are causing K-9 Mail to crash - most open fine - but there are enough for this to still be a serious enough problem to make K-9 Mail almost unusable for me.
How can I fix this?
I read somewhere that something called “Android System Webview” can cause K-9 Mail to crash when opening emails, but it definitely isn’t doing so in my case because it isn’t enabled on my phone.
It’s only worth my while doing so if I can use K-9 Mail. In order to be able to use it before the bug is fixed, I would need to download an older version that doesn’t have this bug and turn off automatic updates for it. Is that possible? If not, I will need to find another email client.
Download an older app version (v16.1 recommended) from F-Droid or Github.
Backup your K-9 settings (settings > export settings).
Uninstall your current version.
Install the downgrade version.
On first run, select to restore your settings from the export file.
Enter your passwords or complete oAuth sign-in.
You also have the option to install Thunderbird for Android 16.1 side by side with your current K-9 version. K-9 and TBA are basically the same app. You can restore your K-9 settings export into TBA.
This would allow you to leave your K-9 untouched until an upgrade fixing the bug is released.
Download an older app version (v16.1 recommended) from F-Droid or Github.
Backup your K-9 settings (settings > export settings).
Uninstall your current version.
Install the downgrade version.
On first run, select to restore your settings from the export file.
Enter your passwords or complete oAuth sign-in.
You also have the option to install Thunderbird for Android 16.1 side by side with your current K-9 version. K-9 and TBA are basically the same app. You can restore your K-9 settings export into TBA.
This would allow you to leave your K-9 untouched until an upgrade fixing the bug is released.
Apologies for late reply - I’ve had a lot on my plate.
If K-9 and TBA are basically the same app, how can you be sure TBA won’t have the same bug?
Regarding exporting settings, see my thread here, which no one replied to. When I last reinstalled K-9 Mail due to my phone being flashed, I had no luck importing my settings and had to follow the New Account prompts instead. I think this was because when importing the settings it asked for the server passwords - but as I’m using oAuth, these passwords aren’t valid. Is there any way of importing the settings so it uses oAuth and doesn’t ask for passwords?
The developers have created 2 debug builds to try and fault find the issue.
Their looking for user assistance to try these and provide feedback on github.
See their request here if your interested in assisting.
I don’t understand how to install them. Also the thread you linked to says: “github-project-automation moved this from In Review to Done in Thunderbird for Android - Sprints3 days ago”. Does that mean they’ve fixed the bug now? If so, they haven’t released the bug fix as my copy of K-9 Mail is still crashing.
The files are installed by downloading the APK file and opening them using your android file manager. You normally need to grant the file manager permission to ‘install from unknown sources’.
You don’t need to worry about this as the beta is now available on Google’s play store.
Search the play store for Thunderbird beta, or wait for the next stable update to be released.
