Gmail Login Problem & Solution in Firefox 2 and 3
Lately, I was having this problem with Gmail site. I’m not sure if it was my system only or browser itself in general. But I have encountered this problem twice so far. It happened once when I was using Firefox 2 and one more time couple of days ago in Firefox 3.
There seems to be a problem with Gmail Logging process in Firefox. Again, I’m not sure if it was only my system but I remember reading it some where else as well. I’ll put it that other source if I find it.
What is the problem?
When you enter your username and password at gmail’s main page, it will not let you access your mail index 
page where you can browse your mails. If you type your information correct, it will recognize your username but not your password. It won’t tell you it’s wrong. When you enter it wrong, it will tell you that it doesn’t match.
You know that information is correct but Gmail simply won’t accept your password and it will keep asking you to re-enter. To make it more clear; lets say that you are logged in and browsing your emails, when you want to use another service of google, it will ask you to re-enter your password just to make sure but not your user name. So this happens after your first correct try. It will ask for your password but it won’t accept it even though you know it’s the correct information.
What can you do to fix it?
This never happened in other browsers or at least the ones that I used. Before I list couple of ways that I think it might be able fix your problem. In firefox 2, nothing in this list worked for me, it just started working again. I don’t know how. I was able to fix it by clearing cache and cookies then restarting firefox from the menu in firefox 3.
- Before you do anything with Firefox, Restart your browser then restart your computer.This might just work if it’s anything with your system.
- Re-installation of Firefox after uninstalling the one you have.
- Disabling recent plugins
- Clearing Private Data (Ctrl+Shift+Del)- Cookies and cache should be enough.
One more time, this is a problem I encountered two times already, Maybe It was my system only, I posted this to make it easy for others who might be having this same problem.
Zack, 
Nikki, 
bill and 13 others are discussing.
Gmail Loading Problem in Firefox 3 | Tenth Blog 10:25 PM on September 17, 2008 Permalink
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Nathanael 8:30 PM on October 15, 2008 Permalink
Hi,
I’m having the same issue, however it’s not just with firefox but also with Outlook POP and IE. Right now I cannot access gmail at all in any browser or computer or via my Outlook, even though I accessed it fine this morning and haven’t been on since to change any settings. This is the second time it’s happened and is very annoying since it makes me lose access to my primary email. Last time it happened it did it for half an hour and then worked fine as though nothing was ever wrong. Any ideas on what’s going on? I hope I can access my email again as right now it won’t let me in anywhere.
Coralyn 1:41 AM on October 31, 2008 Permalink
I am having exactly the same trouble just on the normal google.com page trying to log in to Gmail. I have been trying for days but I just can’t get in. I am on a new computer with Vista on it and before I was with Windows XP and had no trouble. I really don’t know what to do.
leftezi 7:41 AM on January 4, 2009 Permalink
Same problem here. Two days now i can not login in my gmail with Firefox. Whith Google Chrome no problem!!
I have cleared cashe and cookies fro Firefox but the problem remains.
Brad 4:55 PM on January 4, 2009 Permalink
I’m also having the problem. I cannot log into gmail using firefox. I CAN log into gmail using IE8. Sometimes clearing cache and cookies will allow me to log in momentarily but then it happens again. Also, sometimes that will not work at all.
Chris 6:04 PM on January 16, 2009 Permalink
Same problem no solution. I hope they fix this soon. The strange thing is I can log in by going to password reset. It lets me answer some question and then enter a new password. I am then automatically logged in. As soon as I close my session and try to log back in my new password is no longer accepted. I have tried doing the reset and then once in my account setting a new password again. It is still no good once my sessions ends. The problem also occurs when I try to access the account through pop. I haven’t tried Internet explorer yet. I’m on a Linux machine. I’ll go try my windows machine but I’m not getting my hopes up here. I hope they find a fix for this soon.
Chris 6:14 PM on January 22, 2009 Permalink
OK, I found my solution. This is very strange. My email is firstnamelastname@gmail.com. Trying to login with firstnamelastname does not work. I have to login with firstname.lastname. I can send e-mail to firstnamelastname and I receive it. I can use firstnamelastname to reset my password but I have to login using firstname.lastname.
Deb 10:06 AM on January 24, 2009 Permalink
Same problem with logging into both my Outlook Exchange client and Outlook Express. No prob getting mail from IE8.
I tried inserting a dot between various letters of my user name which is not firstnamelastname, just a word unrelated to my name, but that didn’t work.
Any ideas what the problem is? hello Google, can you hear me?
Deb 1:52 PM on January 24, 2009 Permalink
I found this fix by accident and it worked!! Go here and follow instructions:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14257&topic=15580
Here are instructions:
My client isn’t accepting my username and password
We suggest making some adjustments in your mail client’s settings so you aren’t always prompted to enter your username and password. Please check the following settings in your mail client:
Make sure that you entered @gmail.com after your username. For example: john.doe@gmail.com
Re-enter your password to ensure that it’s correct. Keep in mind that passwords are case-sensitive.
Make sure your mail client isn’t set to check for new mail too often. If your mail client checks for new messages more than once every 10 minutes, your client might repeatedly request your username and password.
Now, please follow the steps below to resolve the problem:
Disable all mail clients you’re using to read Gmail messages. (If you use one at work and one at home, please disable both.)
From the computer on which your logins are failing, visit http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
Enter your Gmail username and password, and the letters in the distorted picture.
Once you have successfully logged in, restart your mail client and try to download your mail.
leftezi 8:39 AM on January 28, 2009 Permalink
Solved : The solution was to run ccleaner and remove all “secret” cookies. I did not even knew that such cookies exist!
peppo 10:34 AM on March 14, 2009 Permalink
I have an equal problem. If I want to access my gmail account (FF3) it takes me ages until the page is loaded and it takes ages to refresh the page. If I use my Mailclient (Mac OS-X Mail)it starts to download heaps of data (1 MB per 5 seconds) although there is nothing to download on my gmail account. I have two gmail accounts and the problem occurs with both of them. The next weird thing is that I even have problems with opening google itself. When I use another browser I do not have any problems.
Would be cool if anyone knows an answer to my problem.
Blake 10:40 AM on April 6, 2009 Permalink
I seem to be experiencing something similar. When I try to access certain areas in http://www.linkedin.com, the loading wheel keeps spinning. I used wireshark and saw that my computer kept resending some TLSv1 packets (I believe that is what they were–I am working from memory). I tried both LinkedIn and AT&T DSL technical support. They were no help. I cleared cookies, changed many browser preferences etc. Nothing seemed to work. This only happened when LinkedIn went in to the https mode. I gave up. Then two days ago I tried disabling java and javascript, and it didn’t suspend in infinite spin. The LinkedIn browser said it was working in reduced functionality mode, but that is a lot better than no functionality. So, for me, it seems to have something to do with encryption and java or javascript. Since many websites require these, this isn’t a solution, but at least it points me in a direction for future investigation. I am using ubuntu 8.04 with Firefox 3.08.
Raymond Selda 11:00 AM on May 9, 2009 Permalink
Thank you so much for writing this one! Today I had the same experience and I immediately tried to recover my password by trying to answer Google’s very strict questions. After hours of frustration, I’ve found your blog then I tried clearing all of Firefox’s (im using version 3) private and I got to access my Gmail again!
Thank you.
Russell 10:07 AM on July 7, 2009 Permalink
very helpful post, you should post more stuff related to this.
bill 7:25 AM on August 5, 2009 Permalink
I updated to latest firefox (3.0.6) and it solved this problem for me.
Nikki 5:52 PM on January 3, 2010 Permalink
I try to right click on the Gmail icon to save a short cut to my desk top. It does save something to the desk top but when I click on Gmail does not open just a blank screen..
If some one can tell me how to have a short cut on my desktop I would appreciate it. When I click on the short cut I want it to open at my INBOX for email.Thank you
Nikki
Zack 5:39 PM on January 20, 2010 Permalink
hey! thanks that really helped