[SOLVED] smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

UPDATE: turns out most of this thread is a red herring, see below for details...

UPDATE 2: For users happening onto this thread due to Gmail's deprecation of SSLv3 support in June 2016: see comment #39 (which further points to this thread) for the solution.

Hi!

So yesterday morning I see that the sending of emails from my n900 suddenly stopped working. After looking into it a bit, it turns out that if I disable SSL and just connect over port 25, then I can still send emails. But I really don't think I want to be sending emails (including the authentication to gmail!) in the clear...

Any ideas on what's going on? Could it be that gmail is stopping to support the SSL versions on the N900? Why isn't everyone on the forum seeing this issue?

I'm running the latest CSSU stable (21.2011.38-1Smaemo7), my gmail account has two factor authentication and I use an application password for the smtp access -- none of the settings have changed in probably 3 or 4 years... Using modest as my mail client.

Thanks!
Dov

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

This thread at the gmail help forum from today seems relevant, though I'm still not sure what my options are on the n900...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hi,

I experienced modest failed sending emails yesterday but I thought it is not a big deal; a connection error or something; but yesterday night at home the same thing happend; now I know this is a big issue - I shall look into it too. Thanks for the post!

jm

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

You may try openssl from cssu-devel repo, to see if it fixes the issue for you

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hmm, I have an option to use TLS with port 25 and in this way I can send emails...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

i have just sent a test message with modest on my CSSU-Thumb device, successfully :rolleyes:
(never even knew that Gmail supported non-SSL/TLS connections)

openssl 0.9.8zh-1+maemo1+0m5+0cssu0 (what a name!!)

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

And also on non-CSSU device it is working. Old openssl version.
Using smtp with Normal (TLS) on port 587 ...

But does CSSU stable already included the newest libtinymal?
And I do not use two-way authentification.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Thanks, all, for your responses!

"Normal (TLS)" is indeed now working for me on port 587; and OTOH, port 25 is not accepting unencrypted connections, as one would hope. Possibly, the other day when I thought I was connecting in the clear over 25, I was actually using SSL/TLS; and possibly, I didn't try the combination of TLS over 587...

SSL over 465 -- which is what I had been using up until now -- indeed is still not working for SMTP.

Thanks, again, for your comments!

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Turns out the whole problem had nothing to do with SSL/TLS, nor was it related to the upcoming deprecation of SSLv3 by gmail (which is occurring, see, for example, this thread from slashdot).

Rather, the problem was that I had moved my .modest directory onto external storage (my internal storage kept filling up because my inbox is growing too large -- but that's another matter ;) ). Naively, I assumed that rather than copying the cache, I could just let it be recreated. However, it turns out that the cache contains some data which should be persisted -- specifically, a configuration setting which tells modest to trust the CAs in the common certificate store...

Apparently, gmail switch their IMAP and SMTP certificates every week (at least, they've switched them three times in the past three weeks). This shouldn't normally be a problem, since all of the certificates are signed by trusted CAs -- however, because modest was no longer using the installed certificates, I was having trouble every few days, with both SMTP and IMAP. So each time over the past three weeks that the cert changed, I would pin it (when modest warns about a bad certificate and allows you to choose whether to proceed or not, if you say "yes" then it will pin that certificate in .modest/cache/camel-cert.db) -- after confirming that it is valid, of course! But when I realized this would be happening once a week, I continued looking into it. I inspected all the certs, saw that the root CAs appeared to be installed correctly, and just couldn't understand why modest wasn't seeing them -- until I finally found the above... The link there explains how to restore the configuration that lets modest use the installed certificates, and now all appears to be working (with either SSL or TLS settings).

We'll see what happens next week when gmail does finally disable SSLv3...

Anyhow, sorry for the noise, but hopefully the information here in this last post may help others in the future...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

great :)
yes, I've noticed the 'weekly' certificate issue on mutt which I also use on N900

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hi,
I have fallen into this thread after seing that in the recent days I can not update mail from my gmail account configured as IMAP. gmail does not even ask for the password.
I must be a bit dumb, but, I do not see in this thread a path to follow to reach the solution...
Does any one have an "answer for dummies"?

The problem is:
- open n900 mail
- update accounts
- gmail does nothing since 2016-06-22

Cheers!

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hi!

Same happened to me; modest cannot receive mails from gmail since 06-22; I can send emails though...

jm

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

(It may be worth starting a separate thread for this, since it sounds like an issue with IMAP rather than with SMTP...)

Are you seeing any kind of message from modest about a bad signature? The message may only appear the first time you try to connect -- so disconnect your account (just editing the account details should do that) and then try to send/receive messages to reconnect, and note if any message pops up. If not, this doesn't sound like the same issue I was seeing...

In any case, turn on debug logging to see if that provides any hints as to what the problem is -- from the terminal, run this command:
If you want to save it to a file that can then be posted, add the following at the end of the command, which will save to a file named gmail-imap.log (just make sure before posting that no personal information is in the log...!):
(Note that the 'greater-than' at the beginning is part of the command, and this should all be added as a continuation of the previous command, on the same line...)

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Thanks, dovf!

It is interesting, but now modest is able to refresh; I typed the command you wrote (without the saving "option") and it refreshed. Since than it is refreshing and getting the emails. I did not see any odd debug message about bad signature or anything else...
But now another bug disappoints me: modest cannot send emails... :)

(Sometimes it is soooo painful beeing patient to modest...)

jm

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hmm...

What are your account settings? Outgoing server is presumably smtp.gmail.com? and then, What do you have for Secure connection? And Port?

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I could never retrieve the entire messages while using IMAP.
Try POP, it works very well. No need for the terminal. :p

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hi,

smtp, yes with secure connection; port 25 but tried with another (default; 465 I think) as well but no success.

I will try POP, thanks.

jm

EDIT// OK, I tried to set POP, but on n900 it always tries to set imap, cannot add pop.gmail.com etc (in gmail account I set POP enabled and disabled IMAP...).

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Try turning on the debug as explained a few posts up and maybe that will give us some clues as to what the issue is...

POP is irrelevant here, I believe. POP/IMAP are for retrieving emails, but sending is done over SMTP either way. So if the problem is with sending, POP won't help...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hi,

you are right about POP I was just curious :)

About debug; this terminal output was created after I pressed the send button:
There is a "host lookup failed" message; I do not know why though...

jm

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I got the bit of log that explains (I think) the behaviuor:

The user experience with the email app is that it not even try to login to the server: It does not ask for the password.

I have played with all the solutions I have found around CERTs wiht no sucsess...

Hope this lights someone up!

Thanks.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I have used many years Gmail with N900 without problems, but last June (about 23..28th of June) I could not send messages nor receive messages any more. The problem disappeared by itself on 28th of June, but it re-appeared on 7th of July. After that I have not been able to send nor receive Gmail emails.

I have the same messages in Modest debugging log:

However, I can send and receive emails with the Claws email client, which is available in the extras-devel repository. But the user interface in Modest is much better than that of Claws, so I would like to get Modest working again.

I wonder whether the problems with the Modest email client are caused by this change in Gmail:

http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.fi...d-rc4-for.html

Any ideas?

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

What is your setting in modest?
ssl on port 993?

But more important question:
are you on CSSU? Which version? And which version is modest, resp. libtinymail?

See also.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

After the problem started, I have played with my acount settings in Modest. I have tried to re-create the account, but no luck. Currently I have the following settings:

Incoming:
server imap.gmail.com
Secure authentication ticked
Secure connection SSL (IMAP4S)
Port 993

Outgoing:
server smtp.gmail.com
Secure authentication: Login
Secure connection SSL
Port 465

I'm not using CSSU. I have updated my N900 regularly from the standard repositories since I got the phone in February 2012.

I have Modest version 3.4.8+0m5 and libtinymail 1.1.92+0m5

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Settings are okay (using the same).

And please follow above linked thread where in first post my solution for non-CSSU people is linked.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Thanks for your help - but unfortunately it did not help. I followed the instructions (extracting the files from the two tar.gz archives in the / directory) and I even rebooted the N900, but I still can't send nor receive Gmail messages.

However, I can receive messages from a non-Gmail account.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I took a backup before I extracted those files, and now when I checked the backup I can see that I already had those files! So I have followed your advice earlier when I had problems with Gmail.

The problem that I have now is a new one, and it started in June.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hmm?

It should work, as it does here.
Another guess: double layer security switched on? (settings inside google account)
Else I do not know, sorry.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I have not made any changes in Google accounts. And as I wrote before, Gmail stopped working in June for a dew days, then it started working again by itself, until it broke again on around 7th of July. I had not changed anything when all of that happened.

And I can use Gmail on my N900 with Claws email client. And I can use Gmail on my PC using Thunderbird.

Am I the only one having trouble sending and receiving Gmail messages on N900?

What about number of messages in my Gmail account? I have cleaned up my Inbox but the "All mail" tag keeps growing...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I haven't been having any problems since the ones that prompted me to start this thread, and which were solved as explained in comment 9...

FWIW, I don't have the "Secure authentication" checkbox marked (I think it doesn't actually matter for gmail, authentication happens after the SSL connection is created?); and (unrelated) I *do* use two-factor authentication, with an application-specific password for modest.

My account is set up in modest with gmail as the provider (as opposed to a generic account with the gmail setting manually created), so choosing port 993, for example, is grayed out. Are you using a generic account which just happens to have the gmail settings, or is the account actually set up with gmail as the provider?

(I don't know of any of this matters, just trying to figure out what could be different in our setups...).

How about outgoing email via Gmail (smtp.gmail.com) -- is that working for you? If not, how is it failing?

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I have attached a log which I created with the following command:

CAMEL_DEBUG=all /usr/bin/maemo-summoner /usr/bin/modest.launch -s > modest.txt 2>&1

I have two email accounts, so please ignore references to NIC and saunalahti.fi in the log.

I have created my Gmail account so that I selected Gmail as the provider, so I had the port 993 grayed as well.

I'm not using two-factor authentication.

I tried to change my user name so that it includes @gmail.com and so that it is omitted - it did not affect the problem. I even deleted my Gmail account and re-created it, but still no change.

Outgoing mail (smtp) is failing as well. I don't know which messages in the log file refer to incoming (IMAP) and outgoing (SMTP) traffic.

Regarding certificates: when running command "nsscfg -c /home/user/.modest/cache -i" it shows information about libmaemosec_certman as described in bug 9262 on bugs.maemo.org.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I'm stumped, sorry... I don't see anything in the logs to indicate what the problem is...

The only other difference I can think of is that I'm on CSSU Stable, I have no idea if that matters...

Depending on how much more effort you want to put into this, how familiar you are with the tools, and what your comfort level is with playing around a bit, some further suggestions for exploring the problem:

• You might want to try to sniff the traffic (e.g., with wireshark) to see if a connection with the gmail servers is even established, or if things go wrong even before that happens...

• Completely delete (move to backup) the .modest folder on your n900, and start from scratch, see if that makes a difference? (If you do this, don't forget to reconfigure the certificates!)

• Create a new account on gmail, and try to connect with it?

Good luck!

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I am on "stock" PR but of course with updated tinymail libs.

My account is manually set up.
user name includes '@gmail.com' (but should not matter)
imap ssl 993
smtp ssl 465

And all working ...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I sniffered network traffic between my N900 and imap.google.com with Wireshark. My N900 sends SSLv2 Client Hello packet with the following Cipher specs:

I get the following reply from imap.google.com:

To me this looks like Google does not accept the encryption protocols that my N900 offers for protocol negotiation? Google has dropped support for some protocols, see this announcement:

http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.fi...d-rc4-for.html

Claws works - maybe it uses different libraries for encryption than Modest?

Peter, have you upgraded encryption libraries on your N900?

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

To me this lokks exactly like you analyzed on your own.
N900 offering up to SSL3 and google demanding TLS1.

This would tell me the new libtinymail libraries from CSSU (or my extracted tar.gz files) are not in place.

And no, I have not (yet) upgraded ssl libs (0.9.8n).

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I extraced the two .tar.gz files that were attached into the posting that you mentioned earlier in this thread. However, I realized that I had already done so a year or two ago :-)

Here are the dates and sizes of my tinymail files, do you have the same?

I have libssl0.9.8 version 0.9.8n-1+maemo4+0m5

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Hmm, on first glance they look the same. But the dates are different. And checking some backup/temp folders I have those files with exactly the same file sizes but different dates. And they differ!

I have files with date of Nov 2014
and the uploaded tar.gz should have too.

So best: download again, extract to a temporary folder and diff the extracted libs, e.g.~
$ diff tmp/tinymail/usr/lib/libcamel-lite-1.2.so.0.0.0 /usr/lib
/libcamel-lite-1.2.so.0.0.0

If they differ, put them in correct place, killall modest and try again.
If not: out of ideas...

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I downloaded the two tar.gz files (libtinymail-camel.tar.gz and libtinymail-tiny.tar.gz) from the attachments of this message:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=13

That message is dated 2013-06-21 so it can't possibly contain files with date Nov 2014.

Can I download a newer version somewhere?

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

If the files dates were touched, for example, install date ?

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

Oops, absolutely right!
Sorry. It was that long ago I mixed it up / forgot somehow. Sorry.

Please check old place once more and you will find the post edited to link you to
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...8&postcount=44
with latest libs.

Re: smtp to gmail suddenly stopped working when SSL enabled
 

I downloaded the two tar.gz files from your posting on 2014-11-06 and followed your instructions and rebooted my N900 - and now both sending and receiving Gmail messages work!

Many thanks!