Tuesday, September 24, 2013

How to Address the Gmail Error "Web Login Required"

When configuring a Gmail account in ReplyManager, you may encounter the error message:  Cannot authenticate to IMAP (or POP3) server: [ALERT] Web login required. 

This occurs because Google detects that you're signing in from a location outside of your normal routine (e.g. ReplyManager server) which triggers a red flag. To get ReplyManager reading correctly, you'll need to verify that ReplyManager was given the necessary permission to access the account. To do this, you should configure 2-Step Verification in Gmail.



What is 2-Step Verification?
2-Step Verification is a security feature in Gmail that helps protect your account, even if your password is stolen. This provides extra protection because signing in requires two things: something you know (your password), and something you have (your phone).

How to Fix It
There are a few steps to implementing 2-Step Verification for Gmail and ReplyManager. You must follow through all in order to get things working properly again.


STEP 1: Enable 2-Step Verification 

In Gmail (or any other Google account window), hover over your profile icon and click on My Account



Scroll down to the Signing In section, and click on 2-Step Verification.



Review the information and click Start Setup

Google will send a numerical code to the phone number that you provide each time you sign in from an untrusted computer or device. Enter a number and press Send Code.


Enter the verification code and press Verify.


Review the notice on-screen and click Next.




Press Confirm to turn on 2-step verification.











STEP 2: Generate a Special Password
So now that you've activated 2-Step verification, you'll need to generate an application-specific password for use inside ReplyManager.

Go to the App-Specific Passwords tab and click on Manage Application-Specific Passwords to generate a special password used ONLY by ReplyManager.





Using the Select App drop-down, select Other (custom name).






















Enter ReplyManager in the field and click on Generate.





Copy the password to your clipboard.









STEP 3: Configure ReplyManager

In ReplyManager, go to Maintenance > Accounts, select account. Enter your Gmail username and the password that Google created. Save Changes.




Please note that when you enable Google's 2-Step Verification, you'll need to go through Step 2 above for each device you access mail with. We recommend only using ReplyManager to check the configured account. For more information about Google's 2-Step Verification, go to http://www.google.com/landing/2step/