Troubleshooting Gmail 'Poll via POP3 for email replies'

[omarfilip]

I’m getting an error when setting the Poll via POP3 for email replies to true:
POP3 authentication failed. Please verify your pop3 credentials.

This setup worked before - I had it running fine on a DO droplet that shared a Wordpress installation with Discourse, but I want to run two droplets instead, so I’ve separated the two and Discourse is installed on a subdomain per the official guide docs with Let’s encrypt active. Outbound mail is fine with Mailgun.

• Credentials are good - I can log in to the Gmail account with them.

• Upon setting the user credentials for POP3 polling, Gmail sent me a warning email that “someone has my password.” Obviously that was the failed login from my Discourse.

• In the Gmail account 2-step verification is off; Allow less secure apps is on; POP3 is enabled.

• The Discourse /logs shows one fatal error: EOFError (end of file reached)

I’m not sure where to go from here and what else to check - any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

[Meredith_of_Bevoya (Meredith)]

I’m getting same! Have triple checked my credentials, have 2-step verification off, have less secure apps on, POP3 enabled…and still getting errors on the Discourse side.

[DeanMarkTaylor (Dean Taylor)]

You could always try the alternative to pop3 polling:

Direct-delivery incoming email for self-hosted sites

Discourse is all about enabling civilized discussion. While plenty of people like a web interface, e-mail is still the “hub” of many people’s online lives. That’s why sending e-mail is so important, and when you’re sending e-mail, you really want to be able to receive it, too. There are several reasons why: If e-mails “bounce” (they can’t be delivered for some reason), you need to know about that. Repeatedly sending e-mails that bounce will get your e-mails flagged as spam. Receiving e-ma…

EDIT:

Also note it’s an important troubleshooting step to always login with a real browser into GMail when experiencing authentication issues, read carefully the emails and messages received from Google.

I’ve experienced just the need to login to the account previously for it to work again.

[omarfilip]

I think I figured it out. Using a second browser where I cleared the cache, I logged into the Gmail account that I’m using for POP and then used the Allow access to your Google Account page:

https://accounts.google.com/b/0/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

This did the trick and I was able to set Poll via POP3 for email replies in the Discourse settings.

I went through this process earlier while still logged into my personal Google account and the Gmail POP account. The “Allow access…” page does not indicate for which account access is being granted, so even though I had been logged into the POP Gmail account, the permission reset was apparently not being applied to the right account.

try the alternative to pop3 polling

So is it better to handle incoming mail on the server rather than letting Gmail handle it? I ask because there are numerous posts by the Discourse team expounding the difficulties with email server setups.

[Meredith_of_Bevoya (Meredith)]

https://accounts.google.com/b/0/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

THANK YOU!!! That worked for me too! Much appreciated @omarfilip

[DeanMarkTaylor (Dean Taylor)]

So is it better to handle incoming mail on the server rather than letting Gmail handle it? I ask because there are numerous posts by the Discourse team expounding the difficulties with email server setups.

The difficulties you mention are for SMTP / outgoing mail.

[mpalmer (Matt Palmer)]

there are numerous posts by the Discourse team expounding the difficulties with email server setups.

As Dean said, the current warnings you’ll see are about sending e-mail (for which gmail is a poor service, too), not receiving it. For incoming mail, there is a lot of older documentation around that references POP-based polling, because until relatively recently that was the only approach available. The direct-delivery incoming mail support is only 8 months old, so it’s not necessarily as pervasive as one might like.