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Bug Apple IT Technology

macOS 10.14.4 Mail Client Has Broken Gmail Access For Some Users (apple.com) 48

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
New submitter _observer writes: Hundreds of users are unable to read their Gmail in Apple's Mail client since the upgrade to macOS 10.14.4, with few workaround available. This is impacting business and personal users, although not all Gmail accounts are impacted. The web client and other clients like Outlook still work -- it is only Apple's Mail client that is not playing along. Users say they are caught in a login loop. It appears that the issue was even found and reported in the 10.14.4 Beta, but not addressed when the update was released. No word from Apple about this. While I am somewhat sympathetic to the software engineers having bugs in code (I am an engineer, too), but this seems to be a big QA miss. Gmail is the most popular free email service and this is blocking a large number of users. This thread on the Apple Support forum is growing rapidly (24 pages and counting)
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macOS 10.14.4 Mail Client Has Broken Gmail Access For Some Users More

macOS 10.14.4 Mail Client Has Broken Gmail Access For Some Users

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  • Window's not done until Lotus won't run! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Friday March 29, 2019 @01:37PM (#58354138)

    Reminds me of the old days where Microsoft Windows updates would regularly break Lotus spreadsheet.

  • I experienced the same issue this morning after upgrading, but the System Prefs prompted to re-enter the password. I did so and a Safari link opens up that asks for your Gmail password, then Gmail sends you a code you enter to confirm. It works after that. I believe this is only affecting Gmail users that don't have 2FA setup or those that previously used one-time codes for application access in Google.
    • Well, my experience with 2FA and my gmail and google apps accounts is that I get the infinite loop hell. I just setup my google mail accounts in my (shudders) outlook app (that I don't use for anything else). Really bad move by Apple for not fixing this between beta and release.

    • Yes, the system pref prompted me to re-enter my passwords as well. After entering, Mail.app still shows accounts as offline, and eventually I am re-prompted... after about eight tries I figured it was probably not going to work. Also tried a reboot (which 10.14.4 helpfully auot-provided for me in the middle of processing a password entry response), but still cannot access the affect gmail accounts... to receive new email or send anything out...

      As I said in my other message, the workaround for me was to a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      My only gmail account is for stuff I don't much care about losing & I don't use Google's SAAS stuff so I never setup 2FA. Absolutely no issues after upgrading.

  • Another negative story about Apple seemingly every day... Can't say it makes me sad. We should start a gofundme for all the affected hipsters though.
    • Good point about the "bad story a day" for Apple. Makes me wonder if there are more or less negative stories per day on Microsoft or Apple nowadays...which is strange considering that this is slashdot (!)
  • The whole appeal of Gmail is to read Gmail in the nice Gmail client, where you can just search for your emails instead of trying to organize them. Who in their right mind would read the emails in a clunky mail reader like Mail.app? Apple's Mail program was great in the days of like, Tiger.
    • Gmail has a really nice spam filter; I can see some people routing their mail through it just for the spam filter. And with modern IMAP standards allowing you to leave the mail on the server, you can access your mail using multiple programs without them interfering with each other.

      The last few updates to the Gmail web client have been pretty brutal too. It now takes 5+ seconds for my browser to load it the first time. And it seems to be freezing more often than before. It annoyed me enough to try access

  • This hit me as well, I have around five gmail accounts that no longer work - the interesting thing is, if I delete and try to re-add them, it can't even get account details from Google to complete the add.

    The really curious thing though, is that one lone gmail account is working just fine! What the heck.

    Because two email accounts still worked (iCloud still works of course, as does this other gmail account) I didn't really notice until this morning there was an issue... including one outbound email that ne

  • This thread on the Apple Support forum is growing rapidly (24 pages and counting)

    From past experience, expect that thread to disappear/get locked soon....

  • My question: Iis this a case of defective by design or a case of a bug affecting a competitor so they didn't give a damn to fix it since they were alerted during the beta? (Disclosure: I used to work for Apple.)

    • If you wanted to mess with gmail logins, there are lots of ways to do it that would break it - but it would break for all gmail accounts, not just some...

      This is a case of a super-bad bug slipping past QA and the people that manage releases somehow (since they knew about this bug in the beta version). I don't see how they could ship a final release with this issue known about...

      The real reason I don't think this is done by design, is that this bug does way more harm to Apple's relatively clean reputation o

  • Allow insecure apps... (Score:3, Informative)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Friday March 29, 2019 @02:26PM (#58354366)

    Allow insecure apps, then use standard IMAP with either SSL or TLS authentication, not OAuth...

    https://support.google.com/acc... [google.com]

    It's as secure as anything else if you use a strong password and aren't an idiot about entering it on phishing sites.

  • I've heard that 10.4.4 can also break apps using Metal graphics (the Mac equivalent to DirectX or Vulkan). So if you are using your Mac to play games (other than Photoshop), you might want to hold off on that upgrade. That rules me out, since the only Macs good enough for gaming these days have screens glued on or RAM soldered down.

  • I had this, and turns out there's an incredibly simple solution: generate an app password on https://myaccount.google.com/ [google.com] (under security). Then in macOS, delete the account in System Preferences and recreate it as a regular IMAP account.

    I'm not sure it works for the calendar and contacts stuff, but it sure works for mail.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I don't know the details of this issue, but it is common knowledge that Gmail doesn't follow the standards for IMAP and similar protocols. Many makers of IMAP software have to scramble to get Gmail working in their mail clients. Apparently it is defective by design.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
      I am no IMAP expert - but I would wager that it is somehow related to the fact that gmail uses labels/tags instead of folders. AFAIK with IMAP one message can be in one folder. With Gmail, a folder is just messsages with only one label, but messages can have many labels. Translating that to IMAP seems to be a likely clusterfuck area.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
        To add, looking at comments, this specific issues seems to be an authentication issue, resolved by creating a new 'app password (for non 2fa clients), then re-adding the account in Mac Mail. So, not related to any type of IMAP/GMAIL folder mapping.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Dragged and dropped some emails to a folder. They disappeared. Not in the trash. Not in the destination folder or original folder. No help from Apple. Microsoft was no help either.

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