Yahoo mail problem with Thunderbird on Debian Stretch
 

LATER EDIT: If you're having issues with Yahoo Mail locking up Thunderbird and preventing download of Yahoo mail, this is the answer: basically, the solution is to find the place on the Yahoo Mail site for "enable less secure sign in apps". It's here, I think: https://login.yahoo.com/account/security#other-apps The latest Thunderbird (52.2.1 as of July 2017) also gets locked out by Yahoo.

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I have Debian Stretch (Debian 9) set up. I just recently set this up. I had been using Thunderbird on my previous system quite successfully as an email client on my machine for my Yahoo email account. I have had this Yahoo email for some time. Previously I used a pop3 set up with the username. Lately, this did not work, so I switched to an IMAP set up with the email address as the user. Thunderbird itself would set this up. And this worked.

However, as mentioned, I just recently set up Stretch (a new install) and then installed Thunderbird on it. This set up the connection to Yahoo, and all my emails were downloaded successfully (over 100 -- I had not checked my email for a while). The next day, however, I tried to check if I had any new email, and it would not connect to the IMAP server (or, I suspect it did connect, but nothing happened.) The next day, I then went and tried a few different things in the account set up, and suddenly all the email that had been downloaded vanished, and a little lock symbol showed up by the email account listing in Thunderbird. Try and try as I might, there was no way to overcome this.

Via my browser I signed into Yahoo webmail (something I have not done for years, since I've always used email clients). I accessed my email there.

I searched the Yahoo site for answers, and found the following: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/fix-imap-p...s-sln3773.html

That site gives the same port numbers that had been set up (those being 993 for IMAP and 465 for SMTP).

I pressed the "Click Here to Find Similar Threads" button (in LinuxQuestions.org) and was given the following: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...45#post5737145

That thread described my exact problem, except it was from years ago. I tried its suggestion of changing the SMTP server to 587, but that failed to do anything.

I tossed the hidden Thunderbird file (/home/mark/.thunderbird) and reinstalled Thunderbird to try again, and got the same result (I was immediately locked out). I noticed this on the Thunderbird webmail site (see attached photo).

Here's the link the warning gave: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN27791.html

It mentions that it will block mail being accessed by "obsolete programs". Perhaps the Thunderbird on Stretch is "obsolete". It's 45.8.0 in Stretch, whereas it's 52.2.1-4 in Buster or Sid. Hmm, perhaps if I port the unstable version from Sid's source... well, tried that and it was taking too long and caused my system to almost crash.

I'm disturbed that Yahoo was able to change the hidden file of /home/mark/.thunderbird (seems they were able to basically delete the mail that had been there previously, and prevent any further downloads of mail). This didn't happen when I had Ubuntu installed. Ubuntu gave the option of encrypting the home directory during the setup, which I chose, though Debian didn't give this option (that I can recall). I wonder if that allowed Yahoo to snoop and see that I was using Thunderbird. I don't like the fact that Yahoo was able to change stuff on my computer.

Hmm, I'll try this: https://wiki.debian.org/TransparentE...nForHomeFolder

You're using Yahoo Mail?

You're aware that they were catastrophically hacked multiple times this year, right?

I have been having issues with an Yahoo account accessed through IMAP with Thunderbird. Just for this account (there is another one), the server stops responding. Restarting computer or just TB does not fix. It eventually works again, no matter what was tried to fix it or not. No clues on what the issue is...

And me (and all people I know) have the "allow less secure access" setting enabled.

Yes, I too tried the "allow less secure" and that did nothing.

Anyway, I just finished doing the encryption commands (which all seem to be spelled "ecrypt" for some reason), and that led to a lot of terrifying moments. I logged out and logged back in as root (when I first set up Debian I decided to have a root user as well, rather than rely on sudo). The "ecryptfs-migrate-home -u <username>" command balked at this, claiming that various stuff from my home user ("mark") was active. So, I logged out, and logged back into safe-mode as root. There I successfully ran the "ecryptfs-migrate-home -u mark" command -- it took a while, but did work. I was warned that I had to now log in as user "mark" before rebooting or potential catastrophe would occur (the reason is to test it). Alas, there didn't seem a way to do this in safe mode, so I just rebooted. It did work and here I am. I then ran "ecryptfs-setup-swap" as root to encrypt the swap. More terror as the command gave ominous warnings ("swapon: cannot open /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: No such file or directory"), but otherwise seemed okay. Then, a few minutes after the command had been done, my machine froze and made a lot of struggle noise. I figured I was witnessing its death, but then it stopped, and all seems well. So, I'm going to reboot now and see if Thunderbird will work (assuming the computer still works, which is questionable).

Well, I was just wasting my time with "ecrypt" stuff, I think (I'm not even sure if it worked -- there's no indication on booting into the system that it's being encrypted, whereas there was with Ubuntu). Anyway, I re-enabled the allow less secure sign in from the Yahoo Mail site (when I finally found it) and this time it did work. So, my Yahoo account was unlocked, and now Thunderbird gets the mail. We'll see how long that lasts. I may try to once again create a package from Sid's sources, to see if a newer version of Thunderbird meets Yahoo's standards. But yeah, it may be time to think of another email account (though I loathe the idea of GMail, and the Toronto Freenet email, which I used to use, is no longer reliable enough.)

Anyway, I suppose it's solved. Basically, the solution is to find the place on the Yahoo Mail site for "enable less secure sign in". It's here, I think: https://login.yahoo.com/account/security#other-apps

I use Debian stable (Debian 9, aka Stretch), and so my Thunderbird was older (45.8.0-3). So, I upgraded to Thunderbird 52.2.1-4 from Sid's sources (I compiled this from source to make a binary for my stable system). Yahoo still rejects this as an "insecure app".

This is not right, Mark, that is not the problem. I also use an older version of Thunderbird, and it works. The only problem I have are those eventual and temporary (although long) server not responding (a problem I do not know the cause, as I mentioned before).

Uh, you seem to be contradicting yourself here, dedec0. If you must enable "allow less secure access", then you too are having your Thunderbird rejected as an insecure app (requiring, as you mentioned, for you to "allow less secure access").

No, Mark. My issue is possibly not the same as yours. Even with the setting enabled, Yahoo server stops for one account. It eventually returns! I have no clue to what the issue is. During all the posts I made here my settings were already enabled, and several weeks before (at least).

I see. Yeah, I'm not sure what the issue is for Yahoo stopping for one of your accounts (I myself have only one Yahoo account set up on Thunderbird, and haven't had that same issue). I believe I never before had the issue of requiring the insecure setting to be enabled. Perhaps that was because I was using Ubuntu rather than Debian previously (maybe Ubuntu, being a better known entity, is accepted, I dunno).

Maybe I make a thread in LQ about that. It could be useful to, at least, get a few steps to clearly show the issue: make a few commands to 1) try to access a working account and log its answers, and 2) try to access the "in trouble" account and log its answers. Finally, compare the two, with all the details we can. This should point a clearer path to the problem, I think.

About Ubuntu X Debian, I think that is not your problem. Debian is a popular distribution, and it is more when you compare distros for servers. Further, it has characteristics that makes it the most respected distro with them - its FOSS principles.

Yahoo have made a few changes not too long ago. Now it has the two steps login. It seems to consider its client and its interface more secure than clients that just use direct IMAP access. I do not really agree, although there are situations where that is true. But that made me discover a new setting and change it: enable my access again, which has always been with TB, when it was not with its webpage.

Had this problem start about the same time as others here in July with Thunderbird 52.2.1 on 32-bit Linux Mint 18.1 (then upgraded to 18.2, but no help. No such problem on this same PC with SeaMonkey 2.46, nor with 64-bit Mint 18.2 on another PC. Anytime I would click "Get Messages" on TB I would get a pop-up about a client bug. I removed the Yahoo account, then re-added it to no avail.

I found a workaround/solution on a Mozilla TB thread about this same issue ( http://forums-test.mozillazine.org/v...705af&start=15 ):
"Change server name in "server settings" for yahoo account in Thunderbird from imap.mail.yahoo.com to imap.mail.att.net"

After that let me get the inbox resynced, I decided to revert the server setting to see what would happen, and it kept working! I even stopped and restarted TB a few times, but no nasty client bug pop-up. Go figure. I guess I will have to see how it fares with the original yahoo.com server setting the next few days after some new email (should) downloads.

Wow, rokk! That is so strange! But why you choose imap.mail.att.net? Would this send you yahoo account and password to another server? Did you do it?

My problem does not always happen. And after some hours, at most, it works again. It is a similar behaviour of TB, nonetheless.

Yes, as I wrote above, that workaround, spelled out in the mozilla site posting, let me start sync'ing the inbox on TB again. It would seem that yahoo runs at least some of their email service on att.com hosts, or probably a virtual host with that domain name, as they have done for the email service they provide Frontier users.

I had Frontier ISP service in the past, and thus an email account set up with them via Yahoo, so I still get some email at that address. I am back on TWC/Spectrum now, but do not depend on them for any "serious" email since such ISP changes are likely to happen again, and I want to keep my email addresses consistent and independent of whomever provides my 'net access at any given time.

The interesting aspect of all this, is that the "client" problem comes and goes for many of us (you, too it seems). This makes me think that the problem is really on Yahoo's end, and that they are not very consistent/reliable and/or knowledgeable in handling it correctly. They seem to have some constantly changing mail server setting(s) that breaks/fixes our access repeatedly.

That conclusion confirms for me my practice of using a Yahoo account only for non-essential email such as a discussion group like this one (although I set it up with a similar "throwaway" Gmail account for this particular LQ thread since the subject, Yahoo, has not been reliable for discussing issues pertaining to their own email service ...).

In spite of me declaring this "solved", I do find I still have issues with using Yahoo mail via Thunderbird. I can retrieve mail but I can't send it using Thunderbird. I need to find an email account that I can use with Claws Mail, since I'm sick of both Yahoo and Thunderbird.