i am a bit confused becausing i am hearing opposing answers:

in order to receive emails through the client (without nokia messaging) by setting up gmail for e.g, does it require you to establish an internet connection yourself or does the auto refresh do that automatically like the omweather widget for e.g?

nobody can answer this simple question? :-(

If you are connected already (either you connected manually or you have selected "connect automatically" in the internet settings) then you'll get your emails checked periodically.

If you've set your internet to "always ask" then your emails won't be checked unless you've manually chosen a connection.

None of the standard N900 software will initiate a connection in the background, as far as I know, although the mail client (for example) will happily use an existing connection.

i have it set to "connect automatically", however this does not mean that i always am online or have an internet connection, it just meanst that whenever a connection is established that it chooses that connection.

(?)

anyhow, thats how i have it set, email client ->refresh every 15 min, doesnt refresh at all..

I've got the same problem with the email client
Isn't refreshing when no connection is established.

i filed it as a bug, nr.10504

The same problem here, so indeed, gotta be a bug.

I wonder if no one else has got this problem. Not many people are complaining about that issue.

maybe because many users are online most of the time with their n900, could also explain why some complain about it not refreshing at times and working at other times..

but others have reported the same problem to me, so i guess we are not alone with this..

please vote for the bug:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10504

I have this problem too and I have just voted for this bug. Thanks for creating it.