Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.gmail.com was lost in the middle of the trans
My wife's gmail account in Thunderbird started malfunctioning (she thinks she might have done something but doesn't know what!) where it wouldn't send emails as it would come up with the error message as per my question?
Cutting a long story short I have googled the problem but cannot find a solution that works. I have reconfigured her incoming and outgoing server settings umpteen times including changing port numbers, authentication settings, and one point even changed from imap to POP, and countless other things but all to no avail.
Her settings are now back to their default position and mirror the server settings I have on my gmail account on Thunderbird(which works perfectly) but still she cannot send email but gets that error message.
She can receive email without any difficulty.
Can someone please point me to a working solution (explained in plain English please) before I tear out what little hair I have left!
Oh, and I should add that her email account works perfectly on her Android smartphone so problem seem to be specific to Thunderbird.
All Replies (9)
Please post your Troubleshooting Information.
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Press the "Copy text to clipboard button" and paste the information into your reply.
Application Basics
Name: Thunderbird Version: 68.4.2 Build ID: 20200123140255
Update Channel: release User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.4.2 OS: Windows_NT 10.0
Launcher Process: Enabled
Multiprocess Windows: 0/0
Disabled
Remote Processes: 0
Enterprise Policies: Inactive
Google Location Service Key: Missing
Google Safebrowsing Key: Missing
Mozilla Location Service Key: Missing
Safe Mode: false
Mail and News Accounts
account1:
INCOMING: account1, , (pop3) mail.talktalk.net:110, plain, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.talktalk.net:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, true
account2:
INCOMING: account2, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext
account3:
INCOMING: account3, , (pop3) mail.talktalk.net:110, plain, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.talktalk.net:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, true
account4:
INCOMING: account4, , (pop3) mail.talktalk.net:110, plain, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.talktalk.net:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, true
account5:
INCOMING: account5, , (imap) imap.talktalk.net:143, plain, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.talktalk.net:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, true
account6:
INCOMING: account6, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, OAuth2
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
account9:
INCOMING: account9, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, OAuth2, true
Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days
Remote Processes
Type: Count
Extensions
Name
Version
Enabled
ID
Amazon.co.uk 1.1 true amazon@search.mozilla.org
Bing
1.0
true
bing@search.mozilla.org
Chambers (UK)
1.0
true
chambers-en-GB@search.mozilla.org
DuckDuckGo
1.0
true
ddg@search.mozilla.org
Google
1.0
true
google@search.mozilla.org
Lightning
68.4.2
true
{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
Show All Body Parts
1.3.5
true
ShowAllBodyParts@kamens.us
Twitter
1.0
true
twitter@search.mozilla.org
Wikipedia (en)
1.0
true
wikipedia@search.mozilla.org
Auto Resize Image
1.1.0
false
AutoResizeImage@gmail.com
ImportExportTools
3.3.2
false
{3ed8cc52-86fc-4613-9026-c1ef969da4c3}
Silvermel and Charamel XT
2.0.1
false
silvermelxt@pardal.de
Security Software
Type: Name
Antivirus: Windows Defender Antivirus
Antispyware: Windows Defender Antivirus
Firewall: Windows Firewall
Account 6 has normal password authentication for the smtp. Change it to OAuth2. Same for the incoming server for account 9. Delete all gmail passwords and oauth tokens from Tools/Options/Security/Passwords/Saved Passwords, restart TB, and enter the regular account password in the OAuth browser window when prompted.
sfhowes said
Account 6 has normal password authentication for the smtp. Change it to OAuth2. Same for the incoming server for account 9. Delete all gmail passwords and oauth tokens from Tools/Options/Security/Passwords/Saved Passwords, restart TB, and enter the regular account password in the OAuth browser window when prompted.
Followed your instructions which did ask me to reenter my Gmail password but still having problems with my wife's email (suecrisfield@gmail.com) Didn't get prompted for her password and now getting 'authentication failure while connecting to server imap.gmail.com' and cant receive or send emails??
Here's the updated troubleshooting info
The gmail settings are correct, but if you removed all gmail passwords, I don't know why you wouldn't be prompted to enter the password after a TB restart. Do you have the 2 gmail accounts sending through the correct smtp? Select an account in the left pane of Account Settings, then look at the Outgoing Server (SMTP) drop-down in the lower right pane. Each gmail account should be sending on the smtp.gmail.com that has the same User Name as the selected account. Click Edit smtp server... to confirm this is true for each gmail account. It helps to give each smtp server a distinct Description instead of the default smtp.gmail.com.
sfhowes said
The gmail settings are correct, but if you removed all gmail passwords, I don't know why you wouldn't be prompted to enter the password after a TB restart. Do you have the 2 gmail accounts sending through the correct smtp? Select an account in the left pane of Account Settings, then look at the Outgoing Server (SMTP) drop-down in the lower right pane. Each gmail account should be sending on the smtp.gmail.com that has the same User Name as the selected account. Click Edit smtp server... to confirm this is true for each gmail account. It helps to give each smtp server a distinct Description instead of the default smtp.gmail.com.
sfhowes thanks for your patience.
I've checked as you've suggested and the outgoing server settings are as they should be. I'm totally mystified?
Is deleting my wife's account the next step and creating a completely new one (having saved her emails first)?
You can try removing the account and password/token and add it again, but I don't know why that would work when the previous steps didn't.
Thanks for all your help but in the end deleted the offending account and created a new one.