During past couple of months I have run into at least two situations in which:
- Gmail was unable to fetch emails from an external server for... days
- There was no alert or information anywhere in the comonly used user area of Gmail
The only way I could learn that "something is going on" (the only way to tell the difference that "no new emails" = "an error") was to visit configuration section of Gmail (accidentally most times).
And to notice something like this:
I'm 25+ years into IT, but the described situations is a science-fiction for me. I mean, the main (the only) functionality of Gmail is to fetch emails. How then can it be designed the way that it not informs user in any way that it has a problem with its most important functionality?
For me personally, a mail client with such "feature" is not a mail client at all. I mean, with the above examples (two that I spotted, probably many that I missed) Using Gmail becomes as useless for me as trying to light a match in a heavy rain.
Therefore, I'd like to learn something more about this, but all my attempts so far (mainly: searches through the Internet) brought me to virtually zero knowledge.
Is this topic (why Gmail does not alert about major error) discussed somewhere? Is there any bug report for this? Is there any official Google explanation? Or anything that can help understanding this situation?