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email suddenly not working

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At mid-morning on Feb 21, Mozilla Thunderbird email stopped working. Messages continue to appear in my Inbox, but I can no longer open them and I am unable to send email. When attempting to open or send messages, I see notification "boxes" saying: "imap.gmail.com has disconnected. Server may have gone down or there may be a network problem," or "Sending of message failed because connection to outgoing server smtp.gmail,com was lostโ€ฆ"

 

I have successfully sent and received a test message via gmail by logging onto their website, so I assume something in TB  (or elsewhere in my laptop) changed and that gmail is not the problem.

 

I have searched online for reports of other instances of this problem, but have found only similar cases and none were very recent. TB received an automatic update two days before I noticed this problem.

 

The Toast.net email address I used to log on to What the Tech is one I have had for years but have very seldom used.  My gmail is currently very questionable, so do not use it to communicate with me.

 

Incidentally, when I was beginning to log on to What the Tech, I was taken to a "help" site I've seen (only recently) before that immediately asked for a one-time payment.  I was able to back out of that connection and get to the What the Tech site.

After posting the above and signing OUT, I left the What the Tech site. Upon my return to the site, I found it open and did not have to log on.  Is this normal?

Okay, I signed OUT again, and then restarted my computer.  When I returned to this site, I find I am STILL logged on, which doesn't seem right.

What is your SMTP Server settings? MIne is as follows:

 


[external image: e1c7640f-4f78-4757-9428-0e6710842f09-ori]

 

This is under Seamonkey which should be identical or very close to Thunderbird.

 

Don't take my word for it, I looked this up: OAuth doesn't share password data but instead uses authorization tokens to prove an identity between consumers and service providers. OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows you to approve one application interacting with another on your behalf without giving away your password.

 

I believe 0Auth2 was entered as part of the default Thunderbird setup.

 

I quickly scanned the Gmail article you sent the URL for.  Is that something you suggest I attempt on my own?

I would go through the settings and compare to what you have, see what is different. Something has to have changed as it was working before, right?

 

As I mentioned, I don't use IMAP, just POP so I can't really do much more than search for internet information.

I have studied Add Your Gmail Account to Thunderbird Using IMAP a little, and it appears to be applicable to a client that does NOT have IMAP enabled for gmail.  I DO (or DID) have IMAP enabled, and so far, I canโ€™t find anything wrong with the settings.

 

I tried disabling and re-enabling, which accomplished nothing.

 

Thunderbird continues to show new messages arriving in my Inbox, but I cannot open them.  Thunderbird will open an old message that has been in my Inbox since 9:41 AM on 2/21 as well as any that arrived before then, but will not open any that have arrived since, and will not reply to any.

 

Does the team have a Thunderbird person, or an IMAP person?  I am just floundering and not doing very well without e-mail.

IMAP is the default setup for Thunderbird I've learned, so I'm not surprised your settings came out identical to mine.  There must be something else going on besides Thunderbird settings.  I talked to my ISP Technical Support and they confirmed there's no network problem.  Maybe my Thunderbird became corrupted.  If I uninstall it and then reinstall it, I might lose all my old messages, but I should be able to see them on the gmail site.  Should I try that?

 

BTW, I'm running Windows 7.

 

Where on the Space Coast do you live?  Maybe we should take laptops some place with both wi-fi and draft beer!โ€ฆand wine!

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