gnus nnimap intermittent login failure

gnus nnimap intermittent login failure

[Vivishek Sudhir]

Hi, 

I've been using gnus to fetch/reply-to emails on my gmail via gnus'
in-built nniamp backend. The minimal working configuration (in my init.el) is as follows: 

(use-package gnus 
    :config 
    (require 'nnir) ; for searching through imap 

    (require 'epa-file) ; to be able to code/decode gpg files in emacs 
    (epa-file-enable) 
    (setq epa-pinentry-mode 'loopback 
          epa-file-cache-passphrase-for-symmetric-encryption t) 

    (require 'auth-source) ; setup gpg file access 
    (setq auth-sources '((:source "./authinfo.gpg"))) ; this is where to find the login details 

    ; set gmail as the primary source of incoming mail 
    (setq gnus-select-method 
          '(nnimap "gmail" 
                   (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com") 
                   (nnimap-server-port 993) 
                   (nnimap-stream ssl) 
                   (nnir-search-engine imap) 
                   ) 
          ; ensure gnus doesnt ignore gmail folders 
          gnus-ignored-newsgroups "^to\\.\\|^[0-9. ]+\\( \\|$\\)\\|^[\”]\”[#’()]" 
          ; mark all sent messages as read 
          gnus-gcc-mark-as-read t 
          ) 

    ; configure sending email via gmail smtp, with starttls encryption 
    (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it 
          smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 nil nil)) 
          smtpmail-auth-credentials '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 "myemail@gmail.com" nil)) 
          smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com" 
          smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com" 
          smtpmail-smtp-service 587 
          starttls-use-gnutls t) 

      ; cache emails 
    (setq message-directory "~/gmail" 
          gnus-use-cache t 
          gnus-cache-directory "~/gmail/cache" 
          gnus-cache-enter-articles '(ticked dormant read unread) 
          gnus-cache-remove-articles nil 
          gnus-cacheable-groups "^nnimap" 
          gnus-keep-backlog 200 
          ) 

    ; set gnus parameters 
    (setq gnus-parameters 
      '((".*" 
         (gnus-use-scoring nil) 
         (expiry-wait . 2) 
         (display . all) 
         ))) 
    ; retrieve 100 newest messages from all groups by default 
    ; (setq gnus-parameter-large-newsgroup-initial-alist ((".*" . 100))) 
    (setq gnus-large-newsgroup 100) 
  ) 

There is also some buffer formatting settings I've omitted in the above. 

Essentially, the file authinfo.gpg contains my login credentials for
gmail's imap and smtp servers, which is read by gnus to log in to fetch/reply-to emails. 

The problem is that *sometimes* when I start gnus, things work
perfectly; but about 3 out of 5 times, it would get stuck and show
something like "IMAP user at gmail (default <myemail>):" on the
minibuffer, and if I do RET, it would ask for my password. It seems that
on these occasions, gnus doesn't read the authinfo.gpg file, and falls
back to asking me for the login credentials. 

Why is this happening, and how can this be solved? 

Thanks. 

Re: gnus nnimap intermittent login failure

[Byung-Hee HWANG (황병희, 黃炳熙)]

In Article <m28teu3vxp.fsf@gmail.com>,
 Vivishek Sudhir <vivishek.sudhir@gmail.com> writes:

> [...sorry for snip...]
>     (setq auth-sources '((:source "./authinfo.gpg"))) ; this is where to find the login details 

It's odd, "./authinfo.gpg" <-- What is it?

Sincerely, Byung-Hee.

-- 
^고맙습니다 _救濟蒼生_ 감사합니다_^))//

Re: gnus nnimap intermittent login failure

[Robert Pluim]

soyeomul@doraji.xyz (Byung-Hee HWANG "(황병희, 黃炳熙)") writes:

> In Article <m28teu3vxp.fsf@gmail.com>,
>  Vivishek Sudhir <vivishek.sudhir@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> [...sorry for snip...]
>>     (setq auth-sources '((:source "./authinfo.gpg"))) ; this is where to find the login details 
>
> It's odd, "./authinfo.gpg" <-- What is it?

True. My auth-sources entries are all fully qualified
filenames. Looking through the auth-sources library, it uses
'file-exists-p', which will do filename expansion. Without a '~' in
the filename it will default to looking in the current directory. The
documentation also says:

     If you have problems with the search, set ‘auth-source-debug’ to
     ‘'trivia’ and see what host, port, and user the library is
     checking in the ‘*Messages*’ buffer.  Ditto for any other
     problems, your first step is always to see what’s being checked.
     The second step, of course, is to write a blog entry about it and
     wait for the answer in the comments.

Regards

Robert

Re: gnus nnimap intermittent login failure

[Adam Sjøgren]

Byung-Hee writes:

> In Article <m28teu3vxp.fsf@gmail.com>,
>  Vivishek Sudhir <vivishek.sudhir@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> [...sorry for snip...]
>>     (setq auth-sources '((:source "./authinfo.gpg"))) ; this is where to find the login details 
>
> It's odd, "./authinfo.gpg" <-- What is it?

Well spotted!

I would bet that the problem happens when Vivishek starts Emacs from
another directory than where his authinfo.gpg file is, and it works when
he starts Emacs from that dir.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Det er Thomas Treo, han kan _kun_ lide Sort Sol."           Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: gnus nnimap intermittent login failure

[Vivishek Sudhir]

In fact, the diagnosis by Byung-Hee and Adam are spot on!
Gnus had not problem when it was started from a buffer containing a file
in the same directory as authinfo.gpg, and not otherwise.
Having used full paths for authinfo.gpg, things work now.

All this came from the fact that my init file was tangled from an org
file; and the authinfo was in the same directory as the latter.