Newsgroup username/password problems

[Howard Brazee]

I often have username/password problems with Thunderbird 8.0 on OS-X
Lion 10.7.2, especially if I leave Thunderbird running all night.

I only use Thunderbird as a news reader, and my main news provider is APN.

I get a window that either says:
News Server Password Required
Please enter a password for news server access:

[ ]

[] Use Password Manager to remember this password.



or the same thing asking for User Name.

I fill it in, check the Password Manager box, and get the same window
again. I fill it in again. Note, it doesn't have one window asking
for User Name and the next asking for password. Both dialog windows
are either User Name or Password.

Then I get a different window:

Alert A News (NNTP) error occured: Authentication failed -
Incorrect username/password

================

I open a VPN to Windows where I have Forte Agent connected to APN, and
it connects with no problem, so the problem is with Thunderbird.

I reboot my computer, and keep trying every hour or so until finally it
starts working again - for a few days.

I check Keychain to see the password, but searching on APN doesn't give
me any hits. I sort Keychain by date and don't see anything from today.

How do I debug this problem?

[Jay Garcia]

On 16.11.2011 08:13, Howard Brazee wrote:

Maybe that particular news server has a session timeout and you have to
exit and then access it again to start a new session.

--
Jay Garcia - www.ufaq.org - Netscape - Firefox - SeaMonkey - Thunderbird
Mozilla Contribute Coordinator Team - www.mozilla.org/contribute/
Mozilla Mozillian Member - www.mozillians.org
Mozilla Contributor Member - www.mozilla.org/credits/

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 7:23 AM, Jay Garcia wrote:
> Maybe that particular news server has a session timeout and you have to
> exit and then access it again to start a new session.

That may be how the problem starts. But it restarting, and even
rebooting aren't helping.

Occasionally, I'll get dozens of windows asking me for the user name
and/or password. I'll fill them in over and over again.

How does the password manager work?

[Jay Garcia]

On 16.11.2011 09:02, Howard Brazee wrote:

--- Original Message ---

Try TOOLS => Account Settings => your news server account => Server
Settings => Uncheck ALL boxes except maybe for "Ask me before
downloading .....".

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 8:16 AM, Jay Garcia wrote:
> On 16.11.2011 09:02, Howard Brazee wrote:
>
> --- Original Message ---
>
>> On 11/16/11 7:23 AM, Jay Garcia wrote:
>>> Maybe that particular news server has a session timeout and you have to
>>> exit and then access it again to start a new session.
>>
>> That may be how the problem starts. But it restarting, and even
>> rebooting aren't helping.
>>
>> Occasionally, I'll get dozens of windows asking me for the user name
>> and/or password. I'll fill them in over and over again.
>>
>> How does the password manager work?
>
> Try TOOLS => Account Settings => your news server account => Server
> Settings => Uncheck ALL boxes except maybe for "Ask me before
> downloading .....".
>

Interesting - nothing was checked right now - I know that in the past,
it was checked to check e-mail every 10 minutes and at startup.

Somehow, my settings must have gone away - including my userid & password.

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 8:36 AM, Howard Brazee wrote:
>> Try TOOLS => Account Settings => your news server account => Server
>> > Settings => Uncheck ALL boxes except maybe for "Ask me before
>> > downloading .....".
>> >
> Interesting - nothing was checked right now - I know that in the past,
> it was checked to check e-mail every 10 minutes and at startup.
>
> Somehow, my settings must have gone away - including my userid& password.

Nevermind. I was looking at Mozilla's settings.

APN is set to check messages. Why shouldn't I have it do so?

[Jay Garcia]

Your inquiry was regarding the APN news server, not email. My answers
are based on that account, not your email account.

[Jay Garcia]

On 16.11.2011 09:38, Howard Brazee wrote:

--- Original Message ---

Because it will ask you every time it checks, I NEVER have that setting
checked. Uncheck it and see if that fixes it. If I remember, that
setting is there for non-password/ID accounts.

[David E. Ross]

I believe you are a victim of two problems. First of all, the APN
server likely had a temporary outage. Then bug #437930 caused TBird to
forget your login.

See <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437930>.

--

David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>.

Anyone who thinks government owns a monopoly on inefficient, obstructive
bureaucracy has obviously never worked for a large corporation.
© 1997 by David E. Ross

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 8:36 AM, Howard Brazee wrote:

> Interesting - nothing was checked right now - I know that in the past,
> it was checked to check e-mail every 10 minutes and at startup.
>
> Somehow, my settings must have gone away - including my userid& password.

I just looked at my Saved Passwords.

It shows Username as blank, and password as the userid. I removed it
and will start over.

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 8:47 AM, Jay Garcia wrote:
>> APN is set to check messages. Why shouldn't I have it do so?
> Because it will ask you every time it checks, I NEVER have that setting
> checked. Uncheck it and see if that fixes it. If I remember, that
> setting is there for non-password/ID accounts.

Not every time. I've had Thunderbird running for a week without asking
me. But I unchecked it as part of debugging this problem, with no luck.

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 8:46 AM, Jay Garcia wrote:
>>> Try TOOLS => Account Settings => your news server account => Server
>>> >> Settings => Uncheck ALL boxes except maybe for "Ask me before
>>> >> downloading .....".
>>> >>
>> >
>> > Interesting - nothing was checked right now - I know that in the past,
>> > it was checked to check e-mail every 10 minutes and at startup.
>> >

>> > Somehow, my settings must have gone away - including my userid& password.

> Your inquiry was regarding the APN news server, not email. My answers
> are based on that account, not your email account.

I didn't mean e-mail, I meant news messages, sorry for using the wrong
word. I'm not using Thunderbird's e-mail except to forward messages.

[Howard Brazee]

Well, I started over. When I try to get news, it is now asking me for
my userid twice and my password once. I rebooted, and got the same
result. Now though, when I look at my Saved Passwords, it is blank -
it doesn't know about any.

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 9:08 AM, David E. Ross wrote:
> I believe you are a victim of two problems. First of all, the APN
> server likely had a temporary outage. Then bug #437930 caused TBird to
> forget your login.
>
> See<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437930>.

I expect that's the problem. But I'm not finding a fix. I deleted my
Saved Passwords, but restarting and entering them again doesn't recreate
them. Whether or not I have Password Manager remember the passwords, I
get the news error.

I double checked APN on my Windows VPN, and it is down this time. So
I'll stop futzing with my account until this afternoon. It wasn't down
when I started.

[Frank]

Wonder if there is a use net problem. My eternal-september account has
completely flaky logging on this afternoon. I'm being asked for
passwords and subscriptions are being duplicated and I cannot access groups.

[David E. Ross]

I just now went to my Eternal September account. The news server is up
and working.

[Frank]

On 11/16/2011 2:14 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> On 11/16/11 10:15 AM, Frank wrote:
>> On 11/16/2011 11:42 AM, Howard Brazee wrote:
>>> On 11/16/11 9:08 AM, David E. Ross wrote:
>>>> I believe you are a victim of two problems. First of all, the APN
>>>> server likely had a temporary outage. Then bug #437930 caused TBird to
>>>> forget your login.
>>>>
>>>> See<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437930>.
>>>
>>> I expect that's the problem. But I'm not finding a fix. I deleted my
>>> Saved Passwords, but restarting and entering them again doesn't recreate
>>> them. Whether or not I have Password Manager remember the passwords, I
>>> get the news error.
>>>
>>> I double checked APN on my Windows VPN, and it is down this time. So
>>> I'll stop futzing with my account until this afternoon. It wasn't down
>>> when I started.
>>
>> Wonder if there is a use net problem. My eternal-september account has
>> completely flaky logging on this afternoon. I'm being asked for
>> passwords and subscriptions are being duplicated and I cannot access groups.
>
> I just now went to my Eternal September account. The news server is up
> and working.
>

Yes, I checked there too and now all is well with me but I had to put pw
back in several times and delete a multitude of duplicate folders.
Probably a coincidence that my glitch happened in the time frame of the
op's.

[Keith Nuttle]

I was having pass word request and server failures from
eternal-September. I finally resolved the problem by deleting the E-S
account and rebuilding it.

It has been working the past couple of days.

[Howard Brazee]

On 11/16/11 11:15 AM, Frank wrote:
>> I double checked APN on my Windows VPN, and it is down this time. So
>> > I'll stop futzing with my account until this afternoon. It wasn't down
>> > when I started.
> Wonder if there is a use net problem. My eternal-september account has
> completely flaky logging on this afternoon. I'm being asked for
> passwords and subscriptions are being duplicated and I cannot access groups.

I don't know. I'm back after being gone for several hours, and could
get onto APN with Forte Agent for Windows - but the problem with
Thunderbird for OSX remains.

[Howard Brazee]

Where is the password file for Thunderbird in OSX? I'll use Time
Machine to restore it from last week and see what happens.

[Ken Springer]

On 11/16/11 7:13 AM, Howard Brazee wrote:
> I often have username/password problems with Thunderbird 8.0 on OS-X
> Lion 10.7.2, especially if I leave Thunderbird running all night.

I have the same problem with TB 8 and eternal-september intermittently.
I've not been able to track down a situation that causes it.

Today, when that happened, I kept trying over and over to get messages
from e-s, and kept getting the username/password situation. Filling out
the username/password didn't fix it either.

So, I quit TB and restarted. Filled out the username/password the first
time, it's worked fine ever since.

So, I'm thinking there's something in TB that's an issue.

In my folder/accounts pain, eternal-september is the last account in the
list. How about yours?

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 8.0.
Thunderbird 8.0.
LibreOffice 3.3.4

[Howard Brazee]

It was the last one. But as part of trying to resolve this, I deleted
them all. I'd like to find the file and restore it from Time Machine,
but have no idea where it is.

[Irving Reid]

On Mac OS X, your Thunderbird profile directory is in

~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/(something)/

where the (something) part is a random string plus the name of your
profile. If you haven't explicitly created more than one profile, it
will be (something).default

Inside your profile directory, passwords are stored in the file
'signons.sqlite'

- irving -

[robertmiles]

On Nov 16, 8:13 am, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> I often have username/password problems with Thunderbird 8.0 on OS-X
> Lion 10.7.2, especially if I leave Thunderbird running all night.
>
> I only use Thunderbird as a news reader, and my main news provider is APN.
>
> I get a window that either says:
> News Server Password Required
> Please enter a password for news server access:
>
> [                            ]
>
> [] Use Password Manager to remember this password.
>
> or the same thing asking for User Name.
>
> I fill it in, check the Password Manager box, and get the same window
> again.  I fill it in again.   Note, it doesn't have one window asking
> for User Name and the next asking for password.   Both dialog windows
> are either User Name or Password.

I've seem something that may be related under the TB 7.01 for
Windows. Such prompts never tell me which newsgroups server
they're for, even though it's connected to three different newsgroups
servers with different requirements for what usernames are allowed.
The prompts show up at times that do not relate to which server
I'm reading posts from.

Could these prompts be changed to indicate which server they are
for?

[David E. Ross]

This is bug #432020>. See
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=432020>.