Gmail and Claws

[Steve Litt]

On Sun, 26 Apr 2020 14:43:51 +0300
shlomo solomon <shlomo.solomon at gmail.com> wrote:

> I see what you're doing, but don't see how this would solve my
> problem. Moving from pop3 to imap would not change the fact that
> Google is not allowing me to login. 

It takes about 10 minutes to make the switch, and if necessary 10
minutes to switch it back. If it changes the symptom, then your mental
model of how things really are (as opposed to their design or how a
sane person would design it) was inaccurate. In other words, the bug
could be bizarre, and if that's true, 10 minutes is the cheapest
possible way to find out.

I wish I had a dime for every time somebody said "it can't be that,
that won't change it" when I recommended a diagnostic test, and then the
diagnostic test changes it in an unexpected way.


> And most probably, Ori is correct
> in his opinion that the problem is the login to Google services - not
> to pop3.

> 
> Or do you think that procmail would be allowed to login where claws is
> not allowed?

That would be fetchmail grabbing your mail from the server. Fetchamail
grabs it, then hands it off, on your local machine, to procmail to be
sorted or /dev/nulled. In answer to your question, if Claws is buggy
when it pulls pop, then swapping in fetchmail would fix the problem.
Or, if the problem is with Google's pop server but not their imap
server, then switching to imap would fix the problem. And if the
problem doesn't get fixed, you ruled out some things.

> 
> Just to remind you of what I wrote in my original post - this has
> worked fine for many years and since nothing has changed on my end, I
> have no reason to think that pop3 is the problem.

That's my point. The past few weeks you've randomly gotten this error
when pulling email. It's an intermittent problem, logic is the usual
victim of intermittent problem, and it's often best to use an alternate
set of debugging tactics when dealing with intermittents.

What I'd do in your situation is:

1) Make a Claws folder just to contain downloaded stuff.

2) Temporarily configure fetchmail to retrieve from the offending gmail
account and send the messages to procmail.

3) Configure procmail to place all messages in your new folder

4) Look for evidence of login failures


In case you're using MH folders with your Claws, here are some docs on
how to get procmail to drop messages into MH folders:

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/mh-e/Procmail.html

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/336420/how-do-you-use-procmail-mda-to-deliver-files-to-be-read-by-mh

https://linux.die.net/man/5/procmailex

http://www.cs.utah.edu/~clake/soc_mh.html
 
SteveT

Steve Litt
March 2020 featured book: Troubleshooting: Why Bother?
http://www.troubleshooters.com/twb