My Yahoo mail app has stopped working

[AC Question]

I use the Yahoo mail app on my Android phone) exclusively for my yahoo mail. The android version is 2.3.6. A week ago it stopped working correctly. It shows the list of mails in the inbox and the other folders, and it up-to date with the most recent mails. However, the summary of information shown each mail on the list is corrupted - what should be shown as 2 lines is shown with the 2nd line on top of the first line, making it all but unreadable. In addition, I cannot open the mails. I have deleted the yahoo mail app, and downloaded it again, but the problem is not solved.
Any further ideas would be welcome

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! I'm guessing it has to do with incompatibility with Gingerbread, which is very much out of date. Considering the security woes that Yahoo has been going through, I wouldn't be surprised if they terminated support for older less secure Android versions.

 

[smvim]

If you've been uninstalling/re-installing the Yahoo email app by just hitting the 'Uninstall' button you need to use the 'Clear data' button in order to make sure all the Yahoo app settings and its cache are cleared off your phone. So tap the 'Force stop' button, then the 'Clear data' button, and then the 'Uninstall' button. Now try reinstalling the app, and note that you'll have to re-enter your user name and password because all the previous settings have been wiped.

If the Yahoo email app is still acting quirky, you could try and find another email app that will still work on Gingerbread to see if this is a matter where the Yahoo email app is the issue. Looking through some of the alternatives in the Play Store most bottom out at Ice Cream Sandwich (v4.x) so be judicious. Breaches to Yahoo mail have turned out to be record-breaking in scale so an out of date or lessor-secure email app running on a no longer supported operating system using an email service with questionable security is somewhat risky.
Looking at the Yahoo email app page in the Play Store it only shows 'Varies with device' in its version support info so even if you don't find a reliable email app alternative you could fall back on https://login.yahoo.com/m in the browser.

That said, I'd recommend you migrate your email service away from Yahoo email, it has security issues and now a documented history at relying more on cover-ups than taking steps to protect its own users.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/12/my-yahoo-account-was-hacked-now-what/
and at the very least check if you email address has already been compromised
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_I_Been_Pwned?

 

[B. Diddy]

Excellent advice from @smvim!