Hey Google, why is my Gmail account constantly blocked?
This is getting ridiculous. For the past three months Gmail has been blocking my access to my account about every three weeks. I keep getting a message that says: Unusual Activity Detected
This account has been locked down due to unusual account activity. It may take up to 24 hours for you to regain access.
Unusual account activity includes, but is not limited to:
- Receiving, deleting, or downloading large amounts of mail via POP in a short period of time.
- Sending a large number of undeliverable messages (messages that bounce back).
- Using file-sharing or file-storage software, browser extensions, or third party software that automatically logs in to your account.
- Leaving multiple instances of your Gmail account open.
- Browser-related issues. Please note that if you find your browser continually reloading while attempting to access your Inbox, it’s probably a browser issue, and it may be necessary to clear your browser’s cache and cookies.
If you feel that you have been using your Gmail account according to the Gmail Terms of Use, you can troubleshoot your problem by clicking here.
The only violation I've committed is having the account open on more than one computer in my office and that's because it's so vital to bloggers, but after the first time I've been very careful. I have not been using Gmail in an inappropriate manner and every time I email them my complaints I get a standard automatic response. I'm forwarding all my emails to another account now, but why is it virtually impossible to get a straight answer out of Google?
I also pay for extra space because of the amount of emails I get everyday so WTF is up with them? I tried a few of the online fixes I've seen posted on the Internet, but none of them work. Does Google want me to leave? I'm getting to the point where they will force me to and I will never have a kind word about them again. I come to you because Google is incapable of or unwilling to help.
Does anyone have a solution for this problem? Is Google listening?
Spam is out of control on the internet and all of the things mentioned in that notice have to do with detecting people who are misusing their account to send out spam or conduct other kinds of nefarious business.
The solution is to use something other than Gmail. Surely you must have someone knowledgeable around there to set up a mail server dedicated to C&L.
I think that's a good idea. Instead of @gmail.com, the email service would be under @crooksandliars.com. A lot of hosting providers offer server software to do that and install it from your browser onto your domain.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
Google offers that service, too.
It's called Google for Domains, and I use it for a number of sites that I administer. They have both a free and a professional version of it, and when you get the professional version storage goes way up to 25GB per user.
Fundamentally, one thing a LOT of people with publicly available email addresses have to do is the same regardless of who you get your server hosting from. Change your address every year or so. I personally use several addresses on several hosts, with various levels of distribution. C&L for example has my one-level-above-spam address. Amazon has my private personal address that goes to my phone instantly. Other sites have one that runs through not one, but _two_ spam filters (Hotmail and Gmail) before it gets to my desk or phone.
C&L, as a political site that tends to get rather inflammatory at times, is one that I would guess to be at an increased risk of vandalism and hacking attempts. An in-house server administrator would have to be very, very good, and probably very, very expensive to keep things secured. Someplace like Google or Yahoo, you have security in great numbers of staff and accounts to protect. There are drawbacks, but not spending 60-80 grand a year is a pretty big incentive.
Right - email service is expensive to maintain. It's very expensive for Google to provide it, and yet they give it away free (except for the pittance they charge for extra storage). That's why I think it's somewhat impertinent to bitch loudly when the free service you're using blocks you out periodically because of the volume of your mail, or how you use the service. My point was really that if C&L is unhappy with their service, there are plenty of options available, some of which are just internal policy changes.
I have accounts with both G-Mail and Yahoo. I've had G-Mail for 3 years or so, and in that time, I have had as much spam in my G-Mail inbox as I get in ONE DAY in Yahoo.
I love G-mail and use it as my account for legitimate e-mail. The sites that demand an e-mail address for spamming purposes get my Yahoo address.
It amazes me that the quality of service I get from G-Mail is free. What I also like is how secure G-Mail is. Just because one person may have problems with the service does NOT mean that it is a bad service. Indeed, if I didn't already have an account there, I would go straight after posting this comment and open one.
Nice going, G-Mail! Keep up the excellent work.
If you get your own mail server then you are probably going to spend a lot more than you want to. (firewall, antispam front-end bridgehead server, and a mail server, HIDS/IDS/IPS). Look into companies that will charge you a monthly fee that have all the equipment, far less expensive, GoDaddy, IPower, etc.
Securing your mail server will easily cost you 4 times what you invest in the mail server, unless you want someone on staff to be responsible for that full time then outsourcing is a better alternative. The good equipment and applications cost a lot.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
were queer, so they were discharged, since they were military personnel. The volume to your email box is so high, they've requested periodic closings so they can keep up with the volume.
me-oww!
We have a winner! The surveillance was never halted.
and remember, this administration also thinks that liberals are the enemy.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Get 'em John.
And for those of you with Firefox who aren't crazy about Google's tracking ability. Squiggle. It doesn't stop the tracking, instead it floods the system with random queries.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I use Google and GMail almost constantly, with my laptop and iPhone both set up to check multiple Google-hosted accounts often. What you're looking at _sounds_ like someone might be trying to crack into your account.
Try setting up a second, unpublished account on Google, start forwarding your email from your published address to that and see if you have any problems using your standard mail software. If you don't get lockouts on your new account with the same software being used to check it, then you're probably dealing with someone trying to break in.
It's easy to make enemies when you deal in the political realm, I'm sure.
if that is the case you can bet Google isn't going to put an Intrusion Detection System in place just for John's mail account. Might be time to move.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
"What you're looking at _sounds_ like someone might be trying to crack into your account. "
That was the possibility I was going to mention. Some tool could simply be trying to brute force crack their way in.
I think they are singling you out to make an example of you.
Of course they do not list it in the standard reply but #6 should be:
6. Lack of fealty. You did not remember to pay homage to Google by acknowledging them as the all-powerful, indispensable, unknowable, and omnipotent entity which they are. You have been smited. It is not about you. It is about Google. Google is all. When you make sufficient penance you may be released from the nanopurgatory you are now at.
HAHAHA. Please don't ban me!
"Receiving, deleting, or downloading large amounts of mail via POP"
Is that our (Florida) POP?
far left loon >.<
POP is the acronym for Post Office Protocol, which is an older and still widely used method for accessing remote email servers with a client package like Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail. It's really inefficient if you have a lot of mail every time, because it downloads _everything_ you get whether you intend to read it or not. POP is good if you don't have a constant internet connection, because it means when you see a subject line in your email program, it's all downloaded and on your computer.
The newer method, IMAP, works really well when you have a constant connection by only downloading the subject and header information for each email, and then pulling down the whole thing when you intentionally view the specific message.
I tried to change the e-mail I use for Google News alerts to a gmail account I don't use much and it was rejected. You aren't allowed to use a gmail account for some Google services...
...he uses big words like 'particularly' and 'delicatessen.' -- Jack
My work email acct (and only mine, out of about 20 employees) got set up through gmail when they first came out. (It was also my login homepage, but I never wrote down the path.) When my computer fried a few weeks ago, I found out that there was NO way to access my now-lost login from my other personal gmail acct. And since no one else was still using gmail except me, it took a lot of backtracking of emails (from my IT guy) to figure out how to get back into my email. And forget about trying to link address books between the Google accts.
Now I've got to install Outlook on this computer so I can transfer all my old emails before my work gmail acct is closed ion two days.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
I was watching PBS, "What Darwin Didn't Know," explaining his theories and the new ones in recent decades expanding upon it
And I came upon a realization of the true nature of creation, philosophy and religion:
http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/tlp701747.jp...
Or my preference:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xX3IsPOpVw
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Thanks for the tip , works great . Much faster now too .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
I don't really understand this one because POP is supposed to be low overhead since the emails are typically erased from the server after being downloaded to the client.
One problem with POP is that it doesn't work that well when retrieving it from different workstations, it's not just having multiple instances of it open, but on how many clients. Maybe try downloading the messages from the mail server to a file server on a LAN, then accessing the mail from the file server.
BTW, I gave up on Gmail a while back because I can't stand there customer service.
You don't say if you're using an email client (like Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail) or if you're using the Google Mail Web Interface. If you're logging on via the web interface, I suggest that you use an email client. Set it up to retrieve your email every few minutes.
If you want, you can set up your email on your own network by using one computer as the central email server and then accessing it via the email client on any computer on your network whenever you want. You can use a program like Exchange for this, from Microsoft.
If that is not the problem, then perhaps your email account is just registering too much activity at Google. That often can result in the errors you are getting. Activity can be any kind of access, including failed attempts at logging in. If someone is trying to hack your email account, and Google is geting a bunch of failed login attempts, they will probably lock your account. A "brute force" attack, which constantly tries to login with sequential password attempts until it finds the right one can take a long time, and will keep your account paralyzed while it's going on, and will cause Google to lock your account.
Forwarding all of your email automatically to another account which is not publicly known is probably the best way to keep your email coming regularly. Then just ignore google for awhile, if your email is indeed coming to you. either way, it's probably not their fault.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Thanks for the beautiful musical interlude, ysb!
I'm in a weird mood tonight, veering from Edith Piaf, to Rudee Valee, to to Juliee London, Bessie Smith, to Ofra Haze to Marlene Dietrich to Nana Mouskouri:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMVvGenOA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUOFV5TusE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP8O8Lgjkiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxAqEP8ZAfg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYKWXL-FnyM&fe...
Why isn't there any good rock coming out?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Perhaps it's because of the looming full moon:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpres...
Not only is the moon full, it's blue! It's a double whammy!
;)
Item number 2 about bounced back emails rings a bell with me. I had a virus on my computer, not long ago, that was sending email out to many addresses. I realized it because AVG antivirus kept popping up saying that it was connecting to a particular IP address. There were many instances of this. At the same time, I started getting undeliverable emails being returned to me. After scanning with Spybot S&D, AVG, and Adaware, I cleaned any problems from my computer and it stopped.
This is a real possibility for the cause of your problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=MLJl5gsX56I
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
you may want to check and make sure that IMAP is configured in your Gmail settings. Gmail supports POP and IMAP both. IMAP let's you check your emails from multiple clients by leaving them on the server.
Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail don't offer much more than Thunderbird or any other email client, except that they read, index and store every one of your emails to mine for data. Gmail blows anyway. Stick to what comes with Windows or your Mac or get Thunderbird and stop giving Google any more power over you than it already has.
all you screwy leftists are so silly. now i have to read anti-google screeds?!?!
when did this site turn into gizmodo???
oh thats right. it didnt.
in short. please stick to politics.
I only use gmail and have never had a problem with it at all. Its a security measure. the system is detecting multiple computers operating the same email account.
Lighten up...
I would change my email account, but so many people use the C&L gmail account that I don't want to mess them up...
...someone / thing is backing up all you info every three weeks and google's traffic throttle is clamping down. Might be Google's own internal processes or some unauthorized entity (if you are the suspicious type)
Other than that I'd say sunspots.
Switch to Yahoo - unlimited storage and a web client that rivals or beats any POP client (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.). I gave up on thick clients after about a month of using the new Yahoo mail interface.
If you have Yahoo web hosting or pay an extra $3 for their enhanced service you can use it with any domain name you want (that you own of course).
You might want to consider changing your password to something very strong.
empty your cache - that usually works for me.
no luck.
in more than one computer at a time causes gmail to go nuts. That is the most common problem I've encountered with it. Personally, I use gmail as a secondary email account. I've had reliable service using hotmail for several years. I also use yahoo's email as a backup email service. I use a very strong password and change them randomly every few months. The password generator I use is https://secure.pctools.com/guides/password/ . If gmail keeps locking you out, your website host should have some solutions for you using your domain name. The recommendation for previous posts here to setup your own mail server is an option... but that is a royal pain in the @$$. If someone is trying to hack you, contact your hosting service and set up a "bait" email account and see if your service provider can log stats on the hacker. Good luck, John.
Since your gmail is publicized it's possible someone is trying to guess your password, likely thousands of times with an automated program or script trying as often as possible.
Here's why I say this. I work as a web developer at a top-50 site. Our account system does what's called throttling in the industry to prevent brute force access attempts. Put simply, if you fail to login to the same account or from the same IP address within X amount of time, we automatically deny any login for some amount of time that increases the more you try to login. Since the system keeps track of attempts per account it doesn't matter which IP is failing - the legitimate user will get blocked as well. We've set things up to where if the attempts on an account reach a certain count the account owner is notified of what's going on - apparently Google hasn't hit on that part of the process yet.
I'd suggest setting up a private gmail account that isn't publicized and echoing all of your email to that account from your public account (you can do that in the preferences) - that way you get all the email and don't have to login to the one that's likely to be locked a lot anyway. Gmail should also let you "reply as" from the public address, so your private email is always a secret and more importantly, always accessible.
Just a few quick thoughts off the top of my head since apparently my mind wants to get back to work even though my body wants to enjoy the rest of the week of vacation. I welcome all feedback to my take.
I'm sorry to hear about what you have been experiencing with Google. While I can't say I can relate to what your experiencing (I hope never to), what I can say is that dealing with ANY major corporation can be a real head ache.
For instance, I've been a Mac user since February 2000. My first computer ever was a G3 iMac. I loved the Mac, and Apple for "Thinking Different". After a decade of being a loyal Mac user, I bought my first PC back in April. Why would I do something like that after 10 years. Simply said, Apple sold it's heart and soul to Wall Street.
My first disappointment was when they switched to Intel based systems. Then they changed their primary focus to iPods, and iPhones. The final straw for me was when they changed the name of their email service from mac.com to MobileMe. Since then it's been one thing after another with Apple. It's almost like they are ashamed of their history, and of the Mac itself. They claim to still fight the good fight against Microsoft. But how can they do that when they act just like them?
Apple's attitude towards the users of their products is just as abusive, and controlling as Microsoft. Really new Mac users who are recent switchers have no clue how good the Mac used to be back in the days of the PowerPC. Why should I pay 2 or 3 times as much for a Mac, when the only difference between it and a PC is the operating system? If by simply having the Mac OS X on a computer made it a Mac, then all of the Hackintoshes would qualify also. Only there is the catch, Apple only wants Mac OS X run on their PCs. I love my little Windows PC. Smaller, quieter, more energy efficiant, and I can actually replace hardware easily. Please excuse my rant. I'm just fed up with all of these large corps, especially the ones that claim they care about users of their products, when all they care about is greed.
it's that you cannot get customer service from google. People can talk all they want about "possible fixes and tweaks" but the real problem is ... you can't get customer service.
I find it impossible to see how that's NOT a deal breaker. As a business, I want ALL aspects of conducting business to have support.
This is the new model of business. I think they want to prove that with only advertising (propaganda) they can run a business model that gives absolutely no customer service or support. Just does it's thing and you can like it or suck it.
You know what? Its working.
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
FAULTY SOFTWARE. That's it.
Maybe your email is being monitored by the NSA and somehow it is impacting your email. As a high profile shit disturber in the political area, I would not be surprised if you were put on some kind of list during the Bush years.
Google admits that they do give information to the government.
I just read yesterday that Backupify is causing this problem for a lot of people because they just started offering their service for free and got a huge influx of people signing up and linking it to their Gmail accounts for backup. They even had to take Gmail linking down because of this.
Do you use this or something similar?
If not, then I agree with those above suggesting that you could be a target of throttling.
I think I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so.....
John,
I hate to say it, but if it's not you abusing the account it may be someone else. How secure is your password? Does it contain letters, numbers and special characters? Make sure it's not something someone could easily guess based on knowing a little something about you.
I have been using GMail for several years now for both personal and business email accounts and have never gotten locked out of the accounts. I get hundreds, if not thousands, of emails a day so I don't believe the issue is volume. Or, maybe it could be... If you are pulling the email off the server with a POP client, make sure it's not checking mail every 5 seconds.
- Jason
It's the NSA messing with your e-mail. Your e-mail usage pattern probably fits the profile of a dangerous terrorist. Hell, you are much more dangerous to the NSA than any literal bomb-throwing terrorist.
No Matter what my friends in France cannnot send email to me at my AT&T address. Last week they were blocked from my Hotmail but that seems to be OK now.
All of my friends in France can email me except for one family in Nantes. They are school teachers who have little children!
As for clearing the cache it doesn't matter as AT&T has decided who I can communicate with.
Try it. It should alleviate your problems.
https://www.google.com/accounts/UnlockCaptcha
It has to do with the total emails you sent/received within 24 hours which is capped at something like 500. Not sure how to change that.
Made a small contribution to C&L / JA a few days ago, instantly (like the instant I clicked *Pay*) PayPal suspended my 5+year-old account. Had to complete security procedure to unlock, and my account still has a *dispute* logged, to remain unresolved until the *seller* (C&L / JA) takes action. Twice I have notified them that there is no dispute, but after three days, account is still flagged.
My guess is that JA's Gmail account (also his PayPal account address) is now *suspect.*
Most innocent explanation I can come up with is that whack jobs are repeatedly trying to hack into the Gmail account, and suspensions are noted by PayPal. (Other even more paranoid explanations optional add-on.)
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