Gmail Account on a iMac delayed receiving mails

[Hysteresis]

I have a Gmail account set up on an iMac, and also a 'mail account with 'ME' on and iPad.
My problem is that some emails sent to my Gmail account on my mac are being delayed being received by up to 15 hours. The same message sent to my iPad 'me' account are delivered immediately.
Can anyone offer any advice on how to resolve this issue.
Clearly Google/Gmail are uncontactable.

 

[foxhole]

How often is the mail client set to retrieve mail.?

 

[Hysteresis]

It is set to 'Automatic'.
My problem seems to be effecting only one Sender. That sender sending an identical message to my iPad and to my iMac (with different e-adresses) is received my the iPad immediately but cn be delayed around 16 hours before it is received by my iMac. All other mails from other senders seem to be arriving immediately. The problem seems to be at the senders end which is a company account. I have been trying to analyse the senders methods because if my mac address is used as a second receiver the message is delayed but if it is put as first receiver I usually get the message immediate. Also if I get the message is sent as a 'CC', the message is delayed. It seems to be maybe a problem at the senders end as it is only effecting the messages addressed to my iMac email account, which is a Gmail address whereas my iPad address is a me.com account. The problem has only manifest itself in the last couple of weeks, all was OK before that. I am convinced is is a sender issue, would you agree.

 

[IT Minion]

Intermittent issues are the hardest to diagnose.

There are several stages here. The email is sent, received by Google and then picked up from Google by your machine. Any of those could be the delay until proven not guilty.

Normally the issue is on the local terminal rather than the mail servers at the sender or Google. So the first thing is to cut that out the loop. If it's Google's servers then you're stuffed, give up and welcome being back in snail mail node.

Send another email to Gmail but try to read it from a web browser, that cuts the iMac out of the loop entirely.
At the same time send another email to the iPad device and see when you can read that.

Once you can say that it isn't your iMac causing the issue you have more of a case to talk to the exchange team (or equivalent) at the sender's org. Debugging that is hard and most support teams will try to confirm that it isn't their systems at fault and move on.

 

[Hysteresis]

Thanks for your advice IT Minion, you have hit the nail on the head in that all in the complex loop blame everyone else. With my very limited knowledge of the operation of these interactive servers/receivers/senders, I have no chance. I am pretty sure it is the original senders system, it almost appears they have a block on my e-address until someone approves the mail. But even that is questionable as sometimes the delay is 15 hours and the mail arrives at 3am and no one at the sender will be around at 3am.
It looks as if I will have to live with it and remain puzzled as is generally the case when trying to pin down a problem in the Cyber World.
Thanks for you help.