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Why do I get an alert telling to give my password, but then being told to log in via the web browser?

  • 7 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by christ1

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One of my email accounts has been blocked due security alert. The idea was that someone had access to my account. It is an account I use for online orders. I was asked to give my password - no joy, to change password - no joy, then I was told to log in via gmail. That works but is very inconvenient. What is going on?

One of my email accounts has been blocked due security alert. The idea was that someone had access to my account. It is an account I use for online orders. I was asked to give my password - no joy, to change password - no joy, then I was told to log in via gmail. That works but is very inconvenient. What is going on?

All Replies (7)

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Can we clear up the mention of gmail…

Is this a gmail account? Or is it some other service asking you to log into a website using a gmail account as your identification?

If you have changed a password, then I take it you have accessed a website to do so, and you didn't see any prompts to confirm your identity?

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Hî sorry for lack of clarity. It is in moxilla I get this request. Telling me there was a security issue, suspecting that it was not me trying to get access to that email account. I was asked for password. I put it in. It was not happy and told me to log in via the gmail website. That worked. I changed password as recommended. Saved it. Back in moxilla, i got the same warning, asking for password...............rhat was yesterday. Today I tried again, same story. I tried a lot of online advice. Very interesting to see the working in the background, but so far no result. All I can Say. You have an idea? If so, please let me know . Thanks

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Simple question. Who is your email provider? It is assumed you are using Thunderbird since you are posting to a thunderstorm support forum.

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HI, airmail, yes, it is thunderbird.

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yes, it is thunderbird.

No, it's not. Thunderbird is an email client. Neither Mozilla nor Thunderbird are an email provider.

In any case, it appears we're talking about Gmail here. What is your account type - POP or IMAP?

Please post your Troubleshooting Information. At the top right of the Thunderbird window, click the menu button , then select Help > Troubleshooting Information. Press the "Copy text to clipboard button" and paste the information into your reply.

A general advice. Please read the replies you get here carefully, and answer all the questions being asked.

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this is a bit confusing, because I replied to your post Christ1, but it seems not have gone through. 1) It is Gmail and uses IMAP, like all my other accounts. Thunderbird did that automatically when I set it up and I did not have to put any data in. 2. I allways go into my emails via thunderbird. But recently, whenever I open thunderbird, I get this warning, only for THIS account - not for any of the other five. 3. This account is the one I use to buy online. I have bought some stuff before this happened, so I would have given that account when asked to fill in details. But I cannot remember for whch purchase. 4. I was advised by thunderbird to log into the account via the internet. I did and warning message ist coming up for this account. 5. No warning message is coming up on the Ipad either. 6. I know very little about the technicalities and while clicking around to find some information that made sense to me, the devices I use to get into my emails were listed. Among them there was, what I think was my old Lenovo, which is has not been used for 2 years. I wanted to find some pictures on it. Maybe this caused the alarm.

Now I am going to do as told and copy in the bit from the troubleshooting page. It is account number 8. Do you need the name?

thanks for your help Rose


P.S. I have deleted part of the printer stuff on the filebelow, because the text was too long. Most likely this is why you did not get it before.

 Application Basics
   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 52.6.0
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.6.0
   Profile Folder: Open Folder
             (Local drive)
   Application Build ID: 20180123185941
   Enabled Plugins: about:plugins
   Build Configuration: about:buildconfig
   Memory Use: about:memory
   Profiles: about:profiles
 Mail and News Accounts
   account2:
     INCOMING: account2, , (imap) imap.googlemail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account3:
     INCOMING: account3, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext
   account4:
     INCOMING: account4, , (imap) imap.googlemail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account5:
     INCOMING: account5, , (rss) Feeds, plain, passwordCleartext
   account6:
     INCOMING: account6, , (imap) imap.googlemail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account8:
     INCOMING: account8, , (imap) imap.googlemail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account10:
     INCOMING: account10, , (imap) imap.googlemail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true
   account11:
     INCOMING: account11, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, OAuth2
     OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, OAuth2, true
   account12:
     INCOMING: account12, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, OAuth2
     OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, OAuth2, true
 Crash Reports
 Extensions
   Lightning, 5.4.6, true, {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
 Important Modified Preferences
   Name: Value
     accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0
     browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported: 1
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
     dom.apps.reset-permissions: true
     extensions.lastAppVersion: 52.6.0
     font.internaluseonly.changed: false
     font.name.monospace.el: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-cyrillic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-unicode: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-western: Consolas
     font.name.sans-serif.el: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-cyrillic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-unicode: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-western: Trebuchet MS
     font.name.serif.el: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-cyrillic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-unicode: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-western: Cambria
     font.size.fixed.el: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-unicode: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-western: 14
     font.size.variable.el: 17
     font.size.variable.x-cyrillic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-unicode: 17
     gfx.blacklist.suggested-driver-version: 6.1400.1000.5218
     mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
     mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
     mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: dd6ff402-1b3f-440e-872b-d9ef9b2ccd3
     mailnews.database.global.views.conversation.columns: {"threadCol":{"visible":true,"ordinal":"1"},"flaggedCol":{"visible":true,"ordinal":"3"},"attachmentCol":{"visible":false…
     mailnews.database.global.views.global.columns: {"threadCol":{"visible":true,"ordinal":"1"},"flaggedCol":{"visible":true,"ordinal":"3"},"attachmentCol":{"visible":false…
     media.gmp.storage.version.observed: 1
     network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
     network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
     places.database.lastMaintenance: 1518435968
     places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 122334
     plugin.importedState: true
     plugins.update.notifyUser: true
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Since some time google are pushing a new authentication method called OAuth2 to login to your Google/Gmail account. OAuth2 is primarily intended for web logins, however, Google are also trying to enforce this for email clients, like Thunderbird. Luckily Thunderbird supports OAuth2 authentication for GMail IMAP and SMTP. What you'd need to do is to adjust this in the Thunderbird account settings for the troubled Gmail account.

t the top right of the Thunderbird window, click the menu button > Options > Account Settings > Server Settings

In the 'Security Settings' section change 'Authentication type' to 'Oauth2'.

Do the same for the Outgoing Server (SNMP) at the bottom of the left pane in the Account Settings window.