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Problems with Thunderbird interacting with Gmail

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by tsd10769

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Hi,

Yesterday and today, Thunderbird has been acting strangely in its interactions with Gmail. For a while yesterday I could not send email -- I got a message that the outgoing SMTP password was wrong (it wasn't). Then, after a few hours, the problem went away.

But now, today, it is back. Same experience as yesterday. Then, an hour later, sending mail worked. Meanwhile, in receiving mail, "Host Contacted, Sending Login Information" takes 10-20 seconds instead of being almost instantaneous.

It seems something wonky is happening with both Send and Receive and I am wondering if it is my particular setup or something more widespread.

I am running the latest version of Thunderbird on a Macbook Air, OS 10.15.6

Thanks for any insights you can offer!

Hi, Yesterday and today, Thunderbird has been acting strangely in its interactions with Gmail. For a while yesterday I could not send email -- I got a message that the outgoing SMTP password was wrong (it wasn't). Then, after a few hours, the problem went away. But now, today, it is back. Same experience as yesterday. Then, an hour later, sending mail worked. Meanwhile, in receiving mail, "Host Contacted, Sending Login Information" takes 10-20 seconds instead of being almost instantaneous. It seems something wonky is happening with both Send and Receive and I am wondering if it is my particular setup or something more widespread. I am running the latest version of Thunderbird on a Macbook Air, OS 10.15.6 Thanks for any insights you can offer!

Chosen solution

Sometimes is related with the anti-virus software that you use, sometime is related with the settings for that account, sometime is related with other accounts set on TB which prevent that specific account to not work and can be many more. Ideally will be someone who have your operating system to test and check with you - which I don't have, but I can try it if you mention more details... Can you check if with your anti-virus off do you have same problem? Can you check if your gmail account is set with connection security "ssl/tsl" and authentication method "OAuth2"? Can you mention if on TB do you have also other accounts (beside that gmail one)?

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Wow. Crickets. Nobody knows, nobody cares? Time to find a new email client, I guess....

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Chosen Solution

Sometimes is related with the anti-virus software that you use, sometime is related with the settings for that account, sometime is related with other accounts set on TB which prevent that specific account to not work and can be many more. Ideally will be someone who have your operating system to test and check with you - which I don't have, but I can try it if you mention more details... Can you check if with your anti-virus off do you have same problem? Can you check if your gmail account is set with connection security "ssl/tsl" and authentication method "OAuth2"? Can you mention if on TB do you have also other accounts (beside that gmail one)?

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Hi,

Thanks for the answer! I think you've led me to the solution.

The authentication method was "normal password." This sometimes worked and sometimes failed. Your post made me realize I had not experimented with the effect of VPN on the situation. It turns out all failures occurred when I was connected via VPN. Turning off VPN removed the problem but of course created a new one (no VPN when sending). So as you suggested with VPN on I switched the protocol to OAuth2. That solved it! I have to conclude that some change in the recently-updated VPN's behavior created a problem, for which the OAuth2 setting was the solution. Again, I appreciate your suggestions, which led to the answer. Thanks a million!

David

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Tks for sharing the results! :)

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That's funny indeed !

Since 4 days ago, I couldn't synchronise with my Gmail account. Psw rejected, even with multiple Google re-inscriptions ... TB asked me to log with my web browser. No problem with the other account on TB.

My authentification method was also "normal password", but here my BitDefender VPN was off, by the way !

I tried to put this VPN on ... and TB immediately got 40 new messages from Gmail !!

But this occured only once ! VPN on or off, impossible too get my Gmail messages again ...