Testing POP3/IMAP Credentials… Failed Failed to connect to IMAP/POP3.

[dongrillo]

Hi Vinny,
New user of the paid email notification plugin. I have setup a new gmail account for use and also have the IFTTT all setup. I keep getting the error “Testing POP3/IMAP Credentials… Failed Failed to connect to IMAP/POP3 when testing the email.

Using version 1.06 of the email notification plugin.

Thanks for you help

[vinny]

Hi Don,

That first connection to Gmail can be a pain. Did you try enabling the ‘Less Secure Apps’ in your Gmail account?

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255?hl=en

Also, are you really selecting the pop3/imap option in the connection dropdown? Have you tried selecting the Gmail option?

Cheers,
Vinny

[dongrillo]

Vinny,
In the bbPress Notify (No-Spam) – Reply by Email Settings, In the “Provider” drop down box, I have tried both the “Gmail/Google Apps” and “Other” selections. Both fail to connect.

Gmail settings set for both imap and pop3. Have allowed less secured apps.

I have connected successfully using another personal email (not a gmail account).

[vinny]

Can you create an Admin account for me using vinny [at] usestrict [dot] net so I can have a look?

[dongrillo]

Created an admin account for you.

I did notice that on the License tab, I am not able to enter my API key that was provided in my account details when I purchased the plugin. Should I be able to do that?

I did download and install the plugin that you provided in our account here.

[vinny]

Hi Don,

I had a look at your settings and it all seems fine. Can you try following these steps to generate an application-specific password?

https://www.lifewire.com/get-a-password-to-access-gmail-by-pop-imap-2-1171882

In the meantime, I’ll look into the license issue for you. It’s definitely not related, though.

Cheers,
Vinny

[dongrillo]

Vinny,
Followed the steps to create an application-specific password and I continue to have the same “Failed to Connect” problem. I have tried both “Gmail/Google Apps” and “Other” in the Provider drop down. I have even tried both IMAP and POP3 settings and get the same Failed to Connect.

Don

[vinny]

One client got an email from Google asking whether to allow the connection attempt. Can you check your recovery email address if such email came through?

I’m also working on an oAuth solution for Gmail so we can bypass these issues. I expect it to be ready in a week or two.

[dongrillo]

I read that post about getting an email from google. I do get a confirmation email from google shown below;

“You have successfully created an app password for your Google Account [email protected] named ssi website bbPress on Tuesday, March 20, 2018 2:13 PM (GMT).

This app password will allow you to access your Google account from a device or application that can only be configured with a username and password, rather than a username, password and a verification code.”

[vinny]

The problem is that the host is blocking port 993. Once the oAuth connection option is released, this should no longer be a problem. However, the host should not be blocking that port.

Cheers,
Vinny

[dongrillo]

Vinny,

My host says they have port 993 open. They are going to move our site to another server and see if that fixes the problem. Two step verification has been disabled for the plugin.

The host reply is posted below after allowing them to go in and test it.

“I get the same error. Unfortunately, the error message is so simple it doesn’t provide any insight on why it is failing. If you are speaking with the developer of the plugin, I would ask if there’s a way to turn on error logging for the plugin that will provide more details on why it can’t connect. Right now, it could be anything. I confirmed the server will accept connections on port 993. Do you have 2-step authentication enabled at gmail? I could see that refusing the connection. My only other guess would be an issue with SSL, but it doesn’t look like you can turn that off even for testing. The last thing I will try is moving your site to a new server with a different SSL version to see if that fixes the problem. It would be nice if the plugin gave a more detailed error message though so we are not just guessing at the problem.”

Don

[vinny]

Hi Don,

The support rep didn’t understand the issue. Your server doesn’t need to ACCEPT connections to port 993. It needs to MAKE connections to imap.gmail.com at port 993.

Tell him to SSH into the box and try:

telnet imap.gmail.com 993

[dongrillo]

Host reports:

“Yes, the server MAKES connections to port 993. You can telnet to imap.gmail.com 993 fine on the server.”

Don

[vinny]

Do they give you SSH access? If so, let’s discuss this over email so I can do more debugging.

[vinny]

Here is the error message being returned:

cannot connect to host ; error = fsockopen(): unable to connect to ssl://imap.gmail.com:993 (Unable to find the socket transport "ssl" - did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP?) (errno = 0 )

SSL is required for Gmail connections. Please check with the host to enable SSL transport for fsockopen().

[dongrillo]

Vinny,
As you were able to detect, it was my web host that was the problem all along. After sending them the above information about the "error=fsockopen", they added a PHP module to the server my site is hosted on (they did not say which one) and your “bbPress Notify (No Spam) Reply By Email” plugin is now working.

I want to thank you for your help and support. You were able to find the problem when my hosting service didn’t have a clew.

Don

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