Friends!!! I have returned... with another problem!!!
I am having this weird problem adding gmail accounts to thunderbird (on GNU/Linux). Basically, when you add a gmail account, once thunderbird has located the server settings a popup page of your default browser takes you the google authentication page, where you sign in. No news so far.
However, since yesterday the popup page seems to be non-responsive. It still pops up, and asks for my credentials (see the screenshot below), but the "next" buttons simply don't do anything. I have tried multiple browsers (Firefox Nightly, which is my default, as well as Firefox, Chromium, Chrome, Vivaldi, Brave and Opera). The problems persists throughout.
Any ideas as to what might be the problem? I have had no problems adding my lab's exchange account, or my personal live and outlook accounts to thunderbird. But gmail keeps getting stuck at the above mentioned point!
I'm not sure I can help you, however I have several gmails on thunderbird under linux. I might be able to do a test of sorts. Is this only when you try to add the account, or every time you want to communicate with the servers? And is this with 2FA or not?
But yeah, it's the setup process! Here's the thing though... till I had to do a reinstall of my GNU/Linux setup, I too was running two Gmail accounts (among others) on thunderbird. For over two years! Then I momentarily experimented with a pile of garbage called N1/Nylas for two weeks or so last month. It turned out to be more of a liability and less of an asset. So I purged it, and brought back thunderbird. I was setting it up, and that's when this cropped up.
I googled a bit... and this bug report cropped up! What I don't get is this... the report in bugzilla is 21 days old! And yet, thunderbird was working fine with Gmail when I tried it about two weeks back before the N1 experiment.
2FA is 1337 sp34k for two-factor authentication. Not really though
So, have you tried the 'solutions' in the thread you linked? If I remember correctly you have always had to log into the account in a webpage and grant access to third party programs, like thunderbird. It's been a while, I don't know if this applies to gmail, but in hotmail it does afaik. Should I make a throwaway gmail and see if I get the same bug?
Did you move the .thunderbird folder across when you re-installed? I migrated from U-MATE to Solus to Antegros, and just copy pasta'd that and my .mozilla folders- just started back up where I left off... Sorry that doesn't help you though, unless you have a backup of your old home directory you can copy?
Do you mean 0auth2? If so, then yes, it is with 0auth2!
I don't really see much "solutions" in the thread... other than people telling each other to wait for some sorta "update release"!
And yes, it always has asked for the authentication. That is not the problem. The problem is that now when you click "next" after entering your details... nothing happens!
You could give it a go... but definitely make a throwaway account. Do not remove an in-use account, because you might get stuck!
Nah! I didn't move .thunderbird at all! I did add some themes to that folder... namely these! But I don't think that could possibly cause this! I pretty much did the standard install, and the thunderbird I am using was installed from the official repository, and three other email accounts (outlook, live and vivaldi.net) work fine! So everything is definitely where they should be.
Unfortunately, no! I do not have a backup of the .thunderbird folder, or the entire Home older from the old install. I backed up my research data, and deliberately wiped the hard disk clean. I hadn't done a clean reinstall in over a year, and wanted that smell of "monsoon showers on fresh grass" coming off of my hard disk!
I just tried at it does indeed stall at the login window, can't even get to where you plot in the keyword. The addess does not grey out like on your screenshot though. However, I don't think it launches in your default browser, I think it launches in Thunderbirds own browser (slim version of firefox perhaps?).
Edit+ tried allowing "less secure devices". Does not work.
Edit ++ see the icon in the top left corner, it is for thunderbird, and not chromium which is my default browser.
Edit+++: BTW with two-factor authentication I meant two-step verification (my bad), I mean when you register your phone number for instance, and have to type in a one-time key whenever you want to log in from a new device. This is not enabled by default.
I'm sorry, that I can't help you, but I can answer you this question.
2FA – shorthand for Two-Factor-Authentication – is where you don't just need a username or email-address and a password to login but after entering the previous two, you are required to enter a special code which is usually a 6-digit number that is generate by a device that you own, like your smartphone for example. This way you have two factors, something you know (your password) and something you own (your generator). Banks use this in online banking as well for generating TANs that authorize a certain transaction.
Since people tend to reuse passwords and quite often password databases get hacked, it's easy for people to try to login to your account with a stolen password. For example if you use the same password on a forum as for your email and the forum's database gets hacked, the attackers can see your GMail-Address and try to login to GMail with that same password. If you have 2FA set up, they can't login because they don't have the code that your generator would show. Some websites also offer sending you codes as a text on your phone when you attempt a login.
If you don't already have this set up, it's probably a good idea to look into this, since it is a nice addition to the security of your accounts, especially for sensitive things like your email. Your GMail account is especially sensitive since it allows an attacker to reset various other passwords by requesting a reset-link via email from other accounts they want to get in and just set up a new password that way.
Isn't that the same thing? I know Google and Apple calls it like that, but it's essentially the same, at least to my knowledge.
I never gave it a second thought to be honest, had just heard 2-factor authentication described in the manner you describe, but in the gmail settings it is called 2-step verification. Me not entirely knowing what 0auth2 is, I just wanted to clear up what it was actually called in case I had misunderstood something/was uninformed on the subject.
I think that is a typo (or misread). He probably meant OAuth 2.0 which basically is how you have to login to GMail (in Thunderbird) for a while already. If you activate the option regarding "less secure devices" you have the "old school" method of using simple IMAP with a password. Without that you need to enter your login to Google in a browser window and the application then gets a token that it can use to work with your account. This is called OAuth and allows you to withdraw access of an application to your account without having to change your password (on all of your devices that is).
Aha, thanks for the explanation! And I can confirm with the manual configuration of adding a gmail account in thunderbird I can see it is set to Oauth2 on both incoming and outgoing mail per default.
So, I tried enabling IMAP in the gmail settings, which was not enabled, even though it says on the Mozilla help page that it is enabled by default on new gmail accounts. Anyway, this didn't help. The pop-up window in Thunderbird still has its animations but nothing happens, except for when I click a couple of times on one of the bottom buttons Help, Privacy or Terms, at which point Thunderbird crashes. Or at least, the GUI crashes, because there is still a host of Thunderbird processes still running. Trying to launch Thunderbird again does not bring up the GUI, I have to manually kill the processes and re-launch from scratch.
Oh that! No, I didn't have that enabled! Thanks for the explanation though.
Well, yes that's what it is technically... OAuth 2.0. Sorry about that.
Yep, that wouldn't help. Besides, I've had that enabled for a while now. The pop-up window, for me, did not even respond when I clicked on Help etc. Untill....
I did the update, and then just out of curiosity decided to give the gmail accounts another go. Both worked fine, including the popup authentication windows! Go figure.
I read your post just now and checked my version of Thunderbird, which is 45.8.0. When I go to the process line to minimize the terminal, I see there is a software update available, and lo and behold, there is an update for Thunderbird to 52.1.1.
A few moments later: After a restart the thing totally works! Success! However, it was quite a large update, with a new kernel and all sorts of stuff, but yeah, the culprit is most likely Thunderbird itself.
