[Alpine-info] Sometimes, Alpine forgets the password.

[Carlos E. R. via Alpine-info]

On 2024-09-06 16:21, Eduardo Chappa via Alpine-info wrote:

> On Fri, 6 Sep 2024, Carlos E. R. via Alpine-info wrote:

> 

>> Sometimes, Alpine forgets the password for one of the accounts, that 

>> should have been saved weeks or months ago. Like this morning, 

>> computer resumes from hibernation and it asks for the password of one 

>> account. Ctrl-C, asks again and again, maybe a dozen times.

> 

> Dear Carlos,

> 

>    for some reason authentication failed once. I cannot say why, it 

> might have been an error in Alpine, as well as it might have been an 

> error at the server side. This failure Alpine forget the password and it 

> asks you for it again. What is surprising me is that ^C does nothing. 

> Can you confirm this with me? That should not be the case. I realize 

> that the authentication flow in Alpine is not right, but this makes no 

> sense either.


I get this prompt:

   HOST: imap.gmx.com  USER: robin.listas at gmx.es  ENTER PASSWORD:
   ^G Help
   ^C Cancel             Ret Accept

   ^G: Type your password for the host and login shown as part of the prompt.
       Press ^C to cancel opening folder.

If I hit enter (not entering a password) it tries for a second or two, and the prompt reappears:

   Retrying - HOST: imap.gmx.com  USER: robin.listas at gmx.es  ENTER PASSWORD:
   ^G Help
   ^C Cancel              Ret Accept
                                                                                                

I hit ^C now, I get back to the menu. The thing is, the password is stored for sure, it has been using it for weeks, in the same session. I think that if I exit Alpine, on new entry it does not remember the password.

This morning, I was asked again after ^C, the prompt reappeared many times, maybe with a delay of a second or less.

And the file has changed timestamp.

cer at Telcontar:~> l .pinepw
-rw------- 1 cer users 1659 Sep  6 23:41 .pinepw
cer at Telcontar:~>




> If your Alpine has debug symbols you can start another copy of Alpine 

> under gdb and attach to the other version of Alpine. This makes you gain 

> control on the running version and step through the process to see where 

> it is failing.

> 

> I hope this helps.


Can you expand information on the process to do this? I'm not sure I would be able to do it, anyway, but I don't understand the process to start.


What is important is why it apparently deletes the password entry, instead of just trying again after a delay with the stored credentials, and asking the user to choose retry with same credentials or type then again.


Would it help to change permissions to read only?


-- 
Cheers / Saludos,

		Carlos E. R.
		(from 15.5 x86_64 at Telcontar)

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