Bug: beta 93.0b2 refuses to authenticate with smtp.gmail.com
Status: RESOLVED
Priority: --
Resolution: INCOMPLETE
Created: 2021-09-17 03:25:41+00:00
Resolved: 2022-09-04 21:46:51+00:00

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

Attempt to read mail and/or send mail via a gmail account.


Actual results:

This will be a very long verbose description but it does show that I went over every reasonable step that I thought I could. I may be making some trivial error and I hope that is the case.

After an update to 93.0b2 on a Debian Linux stable desktop and then a thunderBird restart to apply update I try to click on a Gmail account to read email and I instantly am presented with TWO pop-up windows that act as if they are malware. One of the popup windows can be closed with the window manager upper righthand "X" symbol to close a window. The other pop-up window can not be closed. Regardless they both say the same thing : "Login to server imap.gmail.com with username xxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com failed." Then there are three buttons "Enter New Password", "Cancel" and "Retry".  The "Retry" button is highlighted in a light blue color whereas the other two buttons are grey in color.

If I click on "Retry" then I am instantly presented with the same pop-up window. This can happen over and over of course.  Eventually I click in the "Cancel" button as this is futile.  

Meanwhile, at the same time I have a Samsung Android Galaxy phone which pops up warning that an "insecure app" has attempted to login to Google from another device. I reocgnize that this was in fact me and yes I am the person trying to login.

This then drags me into the first obvious test : do I have the correct password? So here I switch to Mozilla Firefox Browser provided in the Debian Stable as version 78.12.0esr ( 64-bit ) and simply hit History -> Clear Recent History and then in the pop up dialog window I select "Everything" from the drop down menu and also select every possible form of history in the radio buttons on the dialog window.  If I understand Mozilla Firefox correctly this should flush out all cache and cookies and all possible website authentication data that may be present.  This allows me to test the email access password on the https://gmail.google.com site. Which works perfectly. Instantly I am presented with the lightweight "basic HTML" web mail interface that I prefer with Google Gmail. Only if I am trapped and have no other access and Thunderbird does not work. Which it currently does not. 

I then check the Google settings for the Gmail account and see the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" settings.  There I see "1. Status: POP is enabled for all mail that has arrived since 12/18/10" also in the IMAP Access section I see "1. Status: IMAP is enabled".  There is even a link that says "2. Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, iPhone)  Configuration instructions" which I then click and see a new tab open in Mozilla Firefox.  There we see a list of steps such as "Step 1: Check that IMAP is turned on" and this has already been checked as yes, IMAP is enabled for the account. 

This is a bit more involved as we then see "Step 2: Change SMTP & other settings in your email client" and that brings us back to Thunderbird beta 93.0b2 where I go to the Gmail email account "Account Settings".  There is nothing special on the "Default Identity" page other than my name and email address in the correct fields.  At the very bottom of this page I see "Outgoing Server (SMTP):" which shows "Google Mail - smtp.gmail.com". This seems correct and matches the instructions at the Google GMail "check through other email platforms" documentation in "Step 2 Change SMTP & other settings in your email client". Then, in Thunderbird I see a button Edit SMTP server" and that brings up a popup window which can not be moved and the rest of Thunderbird becomes color light grey in the background. There are a number of field here with a "Description:" which merely says "Google Mail".  The "Server Name:" field says "smtp.gmail.com".  The "Port:" claims to be 587 and the "Connection security:" drop down menu is selected as "SSL/TLS" with "Authentication method:" drop down selected as "Normal password". Then final field is "User Name:" and there I see my correct email address for gmail.

The instructions here are not clear as Thunderbird seems to have a popup window to configure "Outgoing Server SMTP" and the Google configuration instructions claim that the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server should be either SSL or TLS if available and then two ports are listed as 465 for SSL and port 587 for TLS. Thunderbird makes no separation between SSL and TLS and simply has a dropdown that shows both "SSL/TLS" at the same time. I have to assume that TLS 1.3 is what we now use and that port 587 is correct.

On Thunderbird there is yet another menu option called "Server Settings" where I see "Server Type: IMAP Mail Server". The config I see here seems to match the Google configuration page which states that I need "imap.gmail.com" with port 993. Again I see a Thunderbird drop down option for "SSL/TLS" whereas the Google config instructions only show "SSL". I suspect that the Google config page is wrong and it really should use the more modern TLS 1.3. Regardless the authentication method on Thunderbird is "SSL/TLS" with a "Normal password".

Regardless of all this I am presented with TWO popup windows from Thunderbird which claim that "Login to server imap.gmail.com with username xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com failed." and that I again may re-enter my password. None of this works of course and I simply hit cancel on both of the popup windows.


Expected results:

I expect to enter a password once for read access and then again for send out of email and that is the only problem I face with Thunderbird and GMail. I want to select "RFE" as the bug type wherein perhaps the dialog windows could be more clear about the protocol type in use. Are we using SSL or TLS or some mixture? Regardless I have not been able to access Gmail via Thunderbird.