Can not get Pop3 emails via TB (ubuntu 20.04)

[robbyx]

I can log into the gmail account via Firefox, but not automatically via TB.

In the last few days when I click to get mail, I am taken to a gmail page in Firefox which is headed "sign up once . Use all Google products". It asks for an email or phone no. What ever I put in does not proceed (this includes name and password and email account registered when I log in via firefox.. Finding my account option on the page does not have any effect.

I should have a backup, but what do I restore minimally?

What can I do next?

[DanRaisch]

What settings do you now have for that Gmail server in Thunderbird?

[robbyx]

What settings do you now have for that Gmail server in Thunderbird?

Outgoing Server (SMTP)

Description gmail
Server: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 465
User name:dd....
Authentication method: Normal password
Connection Security: SSL/TLS

[robbyx]

BTW after I posted the reply above I had the following error message:

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to forums.mozillazine.org:80. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the web site owners to inform them of this problem.

[Grumpus]

465 port is usually for Imap
25 is for outbound pop3's smtp unless Gmail requires the 465 or 587 ports

[robbyx]

I tried all three of the ports you commented upon. At each try the sign up page appeared.

I have also:
Reinstalled via synpatic Thunderbird ordinary and for gnome.
Brought back a backup of the Thunderbird home folder for 5 days ago

[robbyx]

I am still struggling with getting emails from my googlemail. I can get into the account via Firefox. In TB I have put in my gmail name, my various phone numbers, none of which allow TB to enter the account via smtp.

Looking at TB inbox there are some emails there but their content is empty even though there are valid subjects and expected source names.

Any ideas?

[tanstaafl]

The smtp server is used for sending messages, not fetching them.

A gmail POP account should use pop.gmail.com as the mail server, port 995, SSL/TLS, and OAuth2 for authentication. You need to enable cookies in Thunderbird (tools -> preferences -> privacy & security -> accept cookies from sites) for the google popup/browser window to do anything.

I recommend against storing your phone number in your google account (not to be confused with your Thunderbird Gmail account) because google has been silently enabling two step verification for anybody who provided a phone number. However if that's been enabled you can still disable it using a browser.

[robbyx]

I removed my mobile no from my google account. Thank you.

I still cannot get any new emails into TB. The sticking point is when I click to get the pop3 mail, a window opens at accounts.google.com requiring me to enter credentials for my Google name. Putting my email address is ignored, as is my phone number. This has been the problem since yesterday.

In TB I have allowed cookies, because some suggest that is the cause.

Any ideas?

I prefer pop3, but I have run out of solutions. Should I try IMAP?

[robbyx]

I do not know why I have it working now. TB has just downloaded 260 messages.

The change came when I decided to log in to my google account via Firefox. I had done this many times since the crash. A notification arose asking if I wish to allow TB to access the account. I agreed, went to TB and was able to d/L.

This is the first time I was able to approve TB to access the account. I guess that it worked because

1. TB was in the background trying to access the account..
2. The page I was seeing when TB wanted access was not FF but TB

[tanstaafl]

Weird, though I'm glad your problem is solved. Thunderbird doesn't call Firefox to display the google popup, it has its own built-support for browsing (due to its using the Gecko toolkit library).

Google forcing people to switch from "normal password" to OAuth2 has caused a lot of problems.

[robbyx]

I guessed that TB was not opening Firefox in place of its own display of the google popup. Today I have had to login again to confirm that TB can access google mail. This time I could do it via the TB browser and have only had to do it once.

I am having a further problem with the download of messages to TB from Google. They go back to 2017. I get large downloads. I delete them in TB via knocking out the duplicate messages, but still they come. It looks to me as if the internal message date controller is not working. How can I reset it so that Google does not send earlier than the last one downloaded?

[tanstaafl]

If its a POP account the popstate.dat file in the accounts local directory is used to record what messages have been downloaded. Its not practical to edit it (extremely time consuming) to block certain messages from being downloaded again. If it keeps downloading the same messages that usually means the file is corrupt. If you delete the file it will download everything again, but shouldn't download them 'n' times anymore.

A corrupt global-messages-db.sqlite file (search index created by global search/indexing) can cause repeated downloads of messages. The workaround is to delete that file (its corrupt) and let it download the messages again (but only once). However, that would effect all of your accounts. If you have some non-gmail accounts and the problem only occurs with gmail that is not the culprit.

For a POP account you can put restrictions on how large a message to download but all of the other settings in "disk space" just delete messages (such as older than X days). You can't say don't download anything older than X days.

[robbyx]

I have some backups of the TB home directory. It might be less hassle to just restore the popstate.dat file from an earlier date. Where is popstate.dat stored? Find popstate.dat run from the desktop found nothing.

[tanstaafl]

Its stored in the accounts local directory as a separate copy of that file is needed for each POP account. That setting is visible at the bottom of the accounts server settings (next to a Browse button).

You might want to try one of the search tools mentioned in https://www.fossmint.com/file-searching ... for-linux/ in the future. Fsearch seems promising.

I'm using Windows so I use "Everything" from https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/everything.html as my search utility. Its extremely fast for NTFS based disks, you can't even tell that it built a index.