1354742 - Manual account setup for Google G Suite does not work on Windows

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Timothy C. Quinn]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/58.0.3029.54 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

When using Google's G Suite, thea users use googles regular imap and smtp servers and settings but the users email domain is not googles and therefore fails in the setup wizard, therefore manual configuration is required.
I have tried many combinations of settings but first followed googles recommended imap settings.


Actual results:

Thunderbird Re-test fails with "Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account" The user gets blocked there and cannot proceed.


Expected results:

Should be able to manually configure accounts using the Manual Config option on windows. Note: This works just fine on Linux.
I believe that this bug has been there for a while as I saw this late last year with someone else's windows box but reverted to using Outlook :-P

Comment 1

[Timothy C. Quinn]

The Manual Config option fails with a regular gmail account on windows as well.

The work around for those who have this same issue and need to get G Suite working for their domain's email is as follows:

1) Create a dummy gmail account, enable imap and "less secure apps"
2) Add an account in Thunderbird on windows and allow thunderbird to create the account. Thunderbird will default to using OAuth which works fine.
3) Once the account is created, go to Accounts and make the following changes:
 [Account Settings] 
 A) Click "account" to see Account settings
 - Account Name: <name_to_give_account>
 - Your Name: <your_full_name>
 - Email Address: <your_company_email_address>
 B) Click "Server Settings":
 - User Name: <your_company_email_address>
 - Authentication Method: Normal Password
 C) Click Outgoing Server (SMTP)
 - Select your Google Mail smtp and click Edit
 - Authentication Method: Normal password
 - User Name: <your_company_email_address>
 - Click OK
 Click OK
4) Click on Get Message and when prompted enter the password for you G Suite password (App password if this is enabled). Click save password checkbox so you don't get prompted each time.
5) Generate a new email and send it. You will get a prompt to enter a new password. Enter the same password as (4)

~DONE~

Comment 2

[Timothy C. Quinn]

I found a simpler and cleaner work around for G Suite subscribers:

1) Create a new account
2) Enter your name, email address
3) Click Continue then click Manual Config when the button displays.
4) On both Incoming and Outgoing: Under SSL choose SSL/TLS and under Authentication choose Normal Password
5) In Username: Incoming: Put your full email address
6) At this point, the Done button should be available. Click Done
7) The Accounts window should now have the new account listed.
 A) Click "Server Settings" for the new account:
 - Server Name: imap.gmail.com
 B) Click Outgoing Server (SMTP)
 - Server Name: smtp.gmail.com
 - Click OK
 Click OK
4) Click on Get Message and when prompted enter the password for you G Suite password (App password if this is enabled). Click save password checkbox so you don't get prompted each time.
5) Generate a new email and send it. You will get a prompt to enter a new password. Enter the same password as (4)

Example above is for imap. For POP3 just change IMAP dropdown to POP3 at step (4) and use pop.gmail.com for your incoming server at (7.A)

~DONE~

Comment 3

[Timothy C. Quinn]

I would like to propose a design change that will help solve this and similar failure modes in the Account Manager.

If we were to add a Provider drop down in the initial screen of the new Account UI, the user can manually override to Google with one selection. The Provider drop down should default to Automatic and select Google or other common providers listed if the email address matches the appropriate pattern. Eg. If email is [e-mail], then Google should be automatically selected.

With this solution, the G Suite account users can still get the slick O-Auth UI for authentication and avoid having to use Application Specific passwords and the related security issues with that approach.

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Timothy,

could you please post an exact reproduction of the bug, *WITH* the actual domain that you are using? You may replace the local part with "test@", but I need to see the actual domain that you tried, to reproduce the bug, and to understand what's going on.

I cannot reproduce this. It appears to work fine.
mozilla.org email happens to be hosted by Google, so this is a good test case:
$ dig mx mozilla.org
mozilla.org.		60	IN	MX	1 aspmx.l.google.com.

Reproduction:
1. File | New | Existing email account...
2. Name: Me
3. Email address: [e-mail]
4. Password: test
5. Click [Continue] button
6. TB searches a config.
7. TB finds and displays the config:
  (o) IMAP
  Incoming: IMAP, imap.gmail.com, SSL
  Outgoing: SMTP, smtp.gmail.com, SSL
  username: [e-mail]
8. Click [Done] button
9. You get an OAuth dialog with Google "Sign in" page.

WORKSFORME

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #4)
> Timothy,
> 
> could you please most an exact reproduction of the bug, *WITH* the actual
> domain that you are using? You may replace the local part with "test@", but
> I need to see the actual domain that you tried, to reproduce the bug, and to
> understand what's going on.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Tim seems to be gone