Very disappointed in this, after your boasts about how good it is.
I cannot import from my other email acounts, and there are continual ‘unable to contact server’ incidents.
This is useless. I have to keep using webmail
Hi Ian.
Sorry you feel that way. Maybe you could give a little more detail about the issues you are having with importing from other email clients. Which client are you trying to import from? What is the error you get when you do that?
A common problem with being unable to connect can be solved by completely disabling your antivirus software and firewall. Often these may have blocked the port or protocol used in eM Client. If that solves the problem, then you can usually open ports in your application that will allow eM Client to connect even when antivirus and firewall are enabled. If you give that a go and still no connection, please give some more details.
As I, and others have previously complained without getting a response, an attempt to import another account (Outlook, Gmail) brings up the response:
“Error when preparing import: object reference not set to an instance of an object.”
In plain English, this statement is meaningless; in computer jargon it is opaque. What does it mean, and how is it resolved?
As to the other problem, not connecting, eM Client seems to think that I am always off-line. I can’t find any setting to tell it otherwise.
It’s been quite a while since I wrote any code, but if memory serves, “object reference not set to an instance of an object” means something like this: First, in the code, you “instantiate” an object of a particular “class.” Elsewhere in the code, you can refer to the object in some way without having to “instantiate” it again — the object in question already exists. But if there isn’t any such object and you try referring to it anyway, then you might get a crash or at least an error message of the sort you’ve observed. Some routine will fail. Maybe there needs to be a test: does that object exist in the first place? Let’s try it, and if it turns out nothing good is going to happen, let’s catch the error before it gives the user some grief.
The more user-friendly approach when the code detects the problem: an error message along the lines of: That didn’t work, and here’s the likely reason.
In short: it could be just a plain old bug. And — I could be 100% wrong about this! Just my gut-reaction.
Or maybe it makes a bit of sense this way: A magician invites someone from the audience on stage to sit in a chair. But there’s no chair. That’s a bit perplexing. But the magician manages to conjure up an illusion of a chair that only the “volunteer” can see. So he attempts to sit in the chair and whammo, he’s now on the floor with a sore tailbone. The chair was never there in the first place. (Not a nice trick at all. The audience member sues, CNN runs the story for a day or two, there’s a huge scandal on social media, and the magician is never invited back to perform at that casino again. 
Thanks for the reply, Mike. It seems clear that for something to be deposited, it has to have a place for the deposit. I take it that that is what ‘object’ refers to. The object in this case is the eM Client, duly downloaded and installed. If the import process cannot find the object, it would seem to be a programming error beyond the reach of the consumer to fix.
This means that the programme is not capable of doing what it claims to do. So even the ‘free’ version is not worth the cost in time and inconvenience of trying to operate it. maybe eM Client is good for people who have never had email, but for those with data to import, it is not worth the trouble.
Do any of the people who run this show read these messages? I doubt it.
They do see them. This isn’t an official support forum but a user-to-user forum. “Paid users” can receive personalized support via a different web site. Company employees do appear in this user-to-user forum every few days and do respond to questions and comments.
I seriously doubt that the object referred to in the error message is eM Client itself as a whole. The entire program consists of (no doubt) hundreds of such objects, created, used, and discarded during sundry operations. There’s apparently some problem with a particular object that’s used during the importing on your own system. If the import process works for some people but fails on your machine…well, that’s something I hope the company can help troubleshoot in this forum even though it isn’t an official paid-user support site.
I had email since some time in the Paleolithic, and eM Client is working fine for me. But there are certain things I haven’t needed to do with it. Importing from other apps is one of them. My general experience with importing mail, contacts, etc. has not been good — in more than one email program in the past. With those less-than-wonderful memories in mind, I just didn’t bother importing anything into eM Client. I found other ways to take care of those tasks.
I think that the many seasoned email users who have successfully migrated from other email clients might disagree with you Ian. I have personally migrated users from Outlook, and have not had the problems you are having. This error is very generic, and without the developers looking at your logs, it will probably be impossible to solve. But one of the limitations of the Free License is that there is no direct access to Pro Support. That is a condition of the license. Em Client staff do monitor this forum, and you will see regular comments from Russel and Olivia, and sometimes others. If one of them get involved in this discussion, you may get that support, but otherwise if you want dedicated support you are going to have to purchase a license.
But there are other ways to migrate from Outlook. Maybe instead of importing the whole of Outlook at one time, import sections separately. These things do not take a whole lot of time and doing it that way you may not encounter your error. You have a Gmail account, so why not just setup that account in eM Client and download your data? If you have calendars and contacts in Outlook that are not synced online, export them from Outlook and import into eM Client.
Thanks for your advice. I’ll try your suggestion.
As to not receiving email at all, the error log is
MailClient.Protocols.Imap.ConnectionPoolEntry.Reconnect(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
and
8:28:58 PM at MailClient.Imap.Base.Connection.Connect(String receiveHost, Int32 receivePort, Boolean explicitSsl)
These reports don’t seem very helpful.
I think maybe the settings are incorrect. The following works for Gmail:
Host: imap.gmail.com
Port: 993
Security policy: Use SSL/TLS on special port (legacy)
Host: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
Security policy: Force usage of SSL/TLS
If the settings are correct and there is still no connection, try disabling your antivirus and firewall and then try again.
One reason that eM Client could be off-line is that you are using a Free License, and have more than two accounts setup. If that is the case remove the extra accounts and eM Client will automatically return to on-line status.