491709 - "because the server has disabled login" is horribly bad error message

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Networking: IMAP, defect)

Description

[Timo Sirainen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042523 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.10
Build Identifier: 

Just because the IMAP CAPABILITY is called LOGINDISABLED, Thunderbird shouldn't use that naming. The problem is never that logins are disabled. The problem is that plaintext authentication is disabled. Change the error message to something like:

You cannot log in to XXX because the server doesn't allow plaintext authentication without SSL or TLS. Enable SSL or TLS or secure authentication in the account settings.

And preferably the "or secure authentication" would be shown only if server actually supports it, but that's not as important as getting rid of the "disabled login" text.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Nikolay Shopik]

It also says - You may need to connect via SSL or TLS.

Comment 2

[Timo Sirainen]

Yes, but it doesn't seem to be enough. I mostly hear about this error from people who are setting up their own mail server and have trouble understanding what it means. "But I've enabled logins in my server, why doesn't it work!"

Comment 3

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Seems like a worthwhile polish change, not sure if we'll have time to work on a better overall experience.

david: do you think this is something we should just change the strings or is it more complicated?

Comment 4

[David :Bienvenu]

Easy to change - just change this string:

http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/diff/e4f4569d451a/mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/imapMsgs.properties

Here's what it currently says:

5104=You cannot log in to %S because the server has disabled login. You may need to connect via SSL or TLS. Please check the account settings for your mail server.

I guess we're supposed to add a new string when we change the text of old strings, which makes it marginally more complicated, but first we need new text for the string.

Comment 5

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Off the top of my head I'd go with something like this, but we should work on it a little more.

Please check Account Settings for server %S.  Common configuration issues are plaintext authentication disabled or secure authentication is not available in the server settings.  The server is reporting that you login settings are not available.

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

Hmm, I think the original is better. The key sentence is "You may need to connect via SSL or TLS".

Comment 7

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Though is should probably talk about SSL/TLS or STARTTLS.

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: proposed wording mockup

How about:
You cannot log in to imap.example.org because the server doesn't allow plaintext authentication without STARTTLS or SSL/TLS. Try enabling connection security or secure authentication in the account settings.

Comment 9

[David :Bienvenu]

that's a big improvement in that it tells the user what to do to fix the problem. "plaintext" authentication won't mean much to users - perhaps non-secure authentication?

Comment 10

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

That's a bit more common language, but I suppose there's a risk people will think they need to check "secure authentication" as the wording is the same. They may want to do that, but i'd think that's the less common problem of the two alternatives.

Comment 11

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: proposed fix

Comment 12

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 385353 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix

thx, Magnus

Comment 13

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Comment on attachment 385353 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix

nice!  looks good

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

changeset:   2963:409024ba9349
http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/409024ba9349

->FIXED