Change in login behavior with TB 91.8.0 and Google Workspace
I use Google Workspace as my e-mail provider, and Thunderbird (PoP3 -- there is a good reason why I use PoP and not IMAP) as my e-mail client. This has worked very well for a long time. Yesterday (4/12/22) updated TB from 91.7.0 to 91.8.0. Previously, I would enter my Google Workspace password (only, once per session) to download mail, and my gmail password (only, once per session) to send mail (using Google's SMTP server). After the update, I was asked for both username and password to log into the Google Workspace account, and every time I sent an e-mail I had to provide both username and password for the gmail account. Fortunately, I had set a restore point before the TB update and was able to restore my system to its normal operation. Can you please help me with what is going on, and how to get back to normal operation under the new update? Thank you!
I'm running Windows 10 Pro 10.0.19044 build 19044 (21H2)
Chosen solution
Apparently I wasn't clear: sorry. I verified that I had accepting cookies on when I tried the new version of TB, and the problem still occurred. I have since done some additional research, and discovered that in addition to making sure that TB is set to accept cookies, the authentication method has to be set to OAuth2 in the SMTP server and Server Settings sections. I made those changes, redid the update, and TB is now behaving as it should. I have two suggestions. First, it would be helpful if users could be warned of the possible effects of change involving OAuth2 with the 98.1.0 update, rather than having to discover them by having TB not work as expected. Second, the solution I found helpful was at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1374252. I suggest pointing people to this in the future. Thanks for your help.
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https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-conversion-google-mail-accounts-oauth20
I suggest you read the relevant support article and the linked announcement from google to understand the why. Basically you no longer get the password choice.
Matt: Thanks for the suggestion. I'm sorry to be slow in replying: I was in the hospital for a week. I checked my Thunderbird settings, and I do have accept cookies from sites enabled, so that apparently isn't the problem. Do you have any other suggestions, please? At this point, I can't update Thunderbird without it "breaking." Thanks.
I would greatly appreciate any help anyone can give me with this. As noted, the suggested fix didn't work: I do have accepting cookies enabled. At this point, I can't update Thunderbird without it "breaking." Thanks
No one can help you as you have restored to a previous version. How would you even know if the next option might or might not work!
What we do know is your issue os local to you. There have been other with issues, but a few dozen out of millions does not form a body of evidence as to why. My guess if the authentication flow is failing your have a rouge antivirus product. You appear from the forum information to be using windows 10. Beyond that you have provided no relevant information.
You say google workspace. Is this with a hosted domain and perhaps defective SSL/TLS security? 91.8 drops support for SHA1 ciphers to encrypt communications. So the issue may have nothing to do with google and everything to do with out of date site security. But really I am guessing as you have provided no idea of the servers involved, the conditions under which you connect, connection settings used, other software installed (antivirus ccleaner etc) or even anything but the Thunderbird version.
Chosen Solution
Apparently I wasn't clear: sorry. I verified that I had accepting cookies on when I tried the new version of TB, and the problem still occurred. I have since done some additional research, and discovered that in addition to making sure that TB is set to accept cookies, the authentication method has to be set to OAuth2 in the SMTP server and Server Settings sections. I made those changes, redid the update, and TB is now behaving as it should. I have two suggestions. First, it would be helpful if users could be warned of the possible effects of change involving OAuth2 with the 98.1.0 update, rather than having to discover them by having TB not work as expected. Second, the solution I found helpful was at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1374252. I suggest pointing people to this in the future. Thanks for your help.
91.8 automatically changes the authentication method if the servers are gmail servers. But you are telling me you had to change them. Therefore I must assume the servers were not gmail but something else. If they were the Google gmail beta servers of googlemail, and there are a few of them still around but they should have been changed about a decade ago.
However none of this makes any sense. Googles change was not occurring til May so there should have been no issue if the upgrade occurred and did not change the authentication method because the servers were not gmail.