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Thunderbird regularly "forgets" app passwords for gmail

  • 4 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by ripsta

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So, I have two gmail accounts and recently turned on 2-step for both of them. I also access both using thunderbird on my home PC and on my laptop at work. Generating app passwords for these accounts generally works, for a time, but invariably thunderbird will start returning the error "Login to server imap.gmail.com failed." for one or both of them. This happens on both machines with equal frequency. Also weird is that sometimes it will work fine until I send an e-mail, then the error will pop up when it tries to save to the sent folder after sending the e-mail. Logging into the relevant google account and revoking then re-generating a new app password will fix the issue temporarily, but it's only a matter of time before I have to do so again. This has been ongoing for about a month, and I can find no pattern to when the passwords seem to stop working. I'm pretty much at my wits end about this...

If any setting or other info would help I'm happy to post, just tell me what info would be relevant.

So, I have two gmail accounts and recently turned on 2-step for both of them. I also access both using thunderbird on my home PC and on my laptop at work. Generating app passwords for these accounts generally works, for a time, but invariably thunderbird will start returning the error "Login to server imap.gmail.com failed." for one or both of them. This happens on both machines with equal frequency. Also weird is that sometimes it will work fine until I send an e-mail, then the error will pop up when it tries to save to the sent folder after sending the e-mail. Logging into the relevant google account and revoking then re-generating a new app password will fix the issue temporarily, but it's only a matter of time before I have to do so again. This has been ongoing for about a month, and I can find no pattern to when the passwords seem to stop working. I'm pretty much at my wits end about this... If any setting or other info would help I'm happy to post, just tell me what info would be relevant.

Chosen solution

I would suggest you try it with oAuth2.0. It is google preferred method. So it might work better. I don't really know.

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Are you using oAuth2.0 to connect? Both in the incoming and outgoing accounts.

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No, both are currently just set to normal password. Is that likely the issue?

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Chosen Solution

I would suggest you try it with oAuth2.0. It is google preferred method. So it might work better. I don't really know.

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Thanks! So far, this seems to have solved the issue. Hopefully it doesn't come back over time.