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Problems setting up a new email account in Thunderbird

Offline Peasant

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Problems setting up a new email account in Thunderbird
« on: January 28, 2014, 10:44:36 AM »
I suspect this is a bug in Thunderbird, but wanted to check to see if anyone else has had similar problems before raising it with them.

I've been running SME for almost 2 years now, and use Thunderbird as my mail client on all my PC's. Recently I have been unable to set up a new IMAP email account on Thunderbird for SME. Any existing accounts that were set up many moons ago (using an older version of Thunderbird) work fine.

Thunderbird detects the mail servers correctly, and configures the account, but fails when verifying the account. On doing a google search there have been problems with IMAP, Thunderbird and passwords with special characters in them (such as !,? and &), but most appear to have been resolved.

I can set up an IMAP email account for my gmail account and it works fine (password also contains special characters).

Thanks in anticipation
Jim

Offline mmccarn

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Re: Problems setting up a new email account in Thunderbird
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2014, 04:08:53 PM »
Are you using automatic account configuration, or manual?

I have had no trouble setting up IMAP accounts in thunderbird as recently as early December (2013).

I:
- always use manual setup
- always specify Connection Security = "SSL/TLS"
- always specify the correct SSL ports (instead of counting on TLS) (IMAPS: 993; SMTPS: 465)
- specify authentication method as 'Normal Password'

At some point I also need to accept my server's self-signed certificate.


Offline Peasant

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Re: Problems setting up a new email account in Thunderbird
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2014, 05:02:58 PM »
Thanks, yes I was relying on the automatic feature to set things up - I should (and do) know better. Interestingly, on one machine I had to let the automatic feature work, as even after entering the correct details the 'Advanced Configuration' button was greyed out.

Got there eventually though.

Thanks again.
Jim

Offline Jáder

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Re: Problems setting up a new email account in Thunderbird
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2014, 03:01:24 AM »
Hi Jim,

Have you seen this: http://wiki.contribs.org/Thunderbird_Auto_Config ?

This allow you to create a special file with desired configuration for all users (like USE IMAP NOT POP!) and Thunderbird will use it.
So your users will just put e-mail, user and password all other configs will be from that file.
I use it so it's easy to activate a new account, anyone can do it, even final user.

Let me know if you can undestand instructions or what I need to do to let them more clear/easy to understand.

Good luck

Jáder
...

Offline stephdl

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Re: Problems setting up a new email account in Thunderbird
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2014, 07:26:09 PM »
some questions in relation to this post

Indeed now when  i use the automatic configuration of Thunderbird to create an account to my sme server it doesn't find the SSL/TLS protocol on 993 ports but it wants to use the STARTTLS on 143 and 25 (for smtp)

Of course if i use the manual way (the button below) i can set what i want (SSL/TLS on 993)

two questions

-STARTTLS on 143 is  enough secured compared to SSL/TLS on 993
-why the automatic configuration can not find the SSL/TLS but work when you set them manually.

I would your point of view, because to explain what are these protocols i have google : https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technology_ssl_vs_tls_starttls.html :)
« Last Edit: January 29, 2014, 07:31:36 PM by stephdl »
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