Problems with tapcis.com Email

[Guerri Stevens]

I am having intermittent trouble today sending Email from my tapcis.com account (hosted by Google). Everything was fine last night and I changed nothing. I am using Thunderbird as my Email client.

This morning, I composed a message as usual, and tried to send it. First I got a message that I should enter a password. This seemed odd because I have the password memorized in Tbird. So I cancelled and checked my settings, and sure enough the password was there.

Then I tried again, and I manually entered the password when requested, and got a message that it was unable to connect to the server smtp.gmail.com (sorry, I know I should have written down the exact message, but I didn't).

So I asked my husband if he was having any trouble, thinking that perhaps our Internet provider had some kind of problem. While he was checking on that, I tried to send my message again and it worked just fine! Aha, I said, a temporary glitch. Premature happiness, as it turns out.

I composed a few other messages, telling Tbird to send later. When I was done, I told Tbird to send everything. Same error. I decided to do a few other things, then try again. This time when it complained about the password, I entered it. The first message was sent, and so were the others, without any further password requests (I expected one for each outgoing message).

Is there a known problem with Gmail today? Something is wrong because Tbird should not be asking for a password in the first place, it should be using the stored password. Do I perhaps need to change the outgoing server?

[sidney]

Is there a known problem with Gmail today? Something is wrong because Tbird should not be asking for a password in the first place, it should be using the stored password. Do I perhaps need to change the outgoing server?

A quick Google search shows no recent complaints about access to the gmail servers. I have seen similar symptoms of asking for the password when there has been a glitch with my Internet connection or with my ISP.

You could try setting up an alternate sending server in Thunderbird that sends through your ISP's mail server, assuming that they provide you with an authenticated mail server that they allow you to send mail from an arbitrary mail address. Almost all ISPs provide that service as long as you are connected to the Internet through them. That would give you a choice of outgoing server to use for when one has a problem.

[Guerri Stevens]

You could try setting up an alternate sending server in Thunderbird that sends through your ISP's mail server, assuming that they provide you with an authenticated mail server that they allow you to send mail from an arbitrary mail address. Almost all ISPs provide that service as long as you are connected to the Internet through them. That would give you a choice of outgoing server to use for when one has a problem.I will try your suggestion if the problem recurs. Thanks!

[Guerri Stevens]

Apparently I have cured the problem. I decided to tell Tbird to store the password after I entered it, and everything is now working fine. Whether that's cause and effect, I have no idea. I *thought* I had already stored the password, but maybe not or maybe I somehow deleted it although I think I would have noticed that.

[Judy G. Russell]

Apparently I have cured the problem. I decided to tell Tbird to store the password after I entered it, and everything is now working fine. Whether that's cause and effect, I have no idea. I *thought* I had already stored the password, but maybe not or maybe I somehow deleted it although I think I would have noticed that.Sometimes the Mozilla-type programs lose the passwords for some reason I haven't been able to fathom. Glad everything is working now.

[ndebord]

Sometimes the Mozilla-type programs lose the passwords for some reason I haven't been able to fathom. Glad everything is working now.

Judy,

The Netscape/Mozilla Password Manager chokes on certain password types.

There are several discussions about it in various Gecko browsers. Here is one:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=257137&highlight=password+gmail

[ndebord]

Sometimes the Mozilla-type programs lose the passwords for some reason I haven't been able to fathom. Glad everything is working now.

Judy,

I just lost my ability to manage (edit) my passwords in K-Meleon 1.5.3. And it was a bad password in the file that made that happen. The solution in that particular Gecko browser was to delete the password files ???????.S entirely and let K-Meleon recreate it, then one by painful one, go to the sites and let password manager save the info to the file. I was zipping everything up after each site, trying to find the one that made the whole thing conk out, but never did find out where or what or why. SIGH

[Judy G. Russell]

I just lost my ability to manage (edit) my passwords in K-Meleon 1.5.3. And it was a bad password in the file that made that happen. The solution in that particular Gecko browser was to delete the password files ???????.S entirely and let K-Meleon recreate it, then one by painful one, go to the sites and let password manager save the info to the file. I was zipping everything up after each site, trying to find the one that made the whole thing conk out, but never did find out where or what or why. SIGHOuch. That's one reason why I keep a backup copy of my profile all the time.