Gmail "Discard changes" popup

[dennisgorelik]

Gmail (for my postjobfree.com webdomain) surprised me again today.

I went to "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" setting
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/fwdandpop

I selected "Enable POP for all mail" radiobutton.
Then I clicked "Save Changes".

Gmail showed "Saving" label for about 15 seconds.
Then Gmail changed "Saving" label to "Still working ..." label.
Then after another 10 seconds of deliberation, Gmail showed me "discard" popup (I was patiently waiting and did not discard anything)
~~~~~
Confirm discard changes

Your changes have not been saved. Discard changes?

[Cancel] [OK]
~~~~~

"Cancel" click keeps Gmail "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" setting screen in "Loading..." state.
It hangs in that state for, at least, 20 minutes.

Similar issue is described here:
https://support.google.com/mail/thread/42859873?hl=en

I already enabled "Less secure app access" in that Gmail account.
That did not help.

Comments

[snowps]

I don't really understand, what is the point of using external mail service for corporate domain in 2021. Postfix/Dovecot combo on *nix VM can running years without any kind of devop intervention, is fully configurable, fast, secure and nobody uses your content for ad targeting.

Corporate email setup

[dennisgorelik]

> Postfix/Dovecot combo on *nix VM can running years without any kind of devop intervention

How good is email deliverability of such Postfix/Dovecot combo?

Re: Corporate email setup

[snowps]

What do you mean by deliverability? Incoming mail filtering is fully controllable with Spamassasin or alternatives and very useful server-side mail sorting rules with Sieve, no problems at all so far. Outgoing mail with correct nameserver records (SPF/DKIM) and reverse DNS zone works fine too, - even if in rare cases some messages are not delivered, you always have access to mail logs and can trace the cause (95% of the problems are caused by very strict spam filtering on the target mail server and 5% by the sender's client PC public IP blocked due to Spamhaus lists (e.g. if he works from trash hotel subnet or public access point). Mail delivery consitency in most free mail services and MS Cloud Exchage is definitely worse.

Re: Corporate email setup

[dennisgorelik]

I mean "outgoing email deliverability" [into my recipient inbox].

> 95% of the problems are caused by very strict spam filtering

That is NOT under your or my control.
That means we have to dance around it.
I think Gmail is doing that "dance" better than you do with your Postfix/Dovecot combo setup.

In any case, managing your own email server, including this setup with email deliverability issues -- is quite time-consuming.

Re: Corporate email setup

[snowps]

No, in most cases such problems can be sorted out, but if recipient's mail server is private, it tends to be simplier (if problem even exists). Google Mail have not only the tendency to mark clean mails as spam and move them to the junk folder, but even discards some mails without any trace at all, - this "feature" is insanely annoying. Russian free mail providers are even worse, e.g. one of managers in one client company likes mail.ru web interface and hates Outlook/Thunderbird alternatives (mail.ru portal can work as a mail frontend to a corporate mail server if you enter email and password) and nearly all unexpected mail behavior in that company, when I compelled to dance around, goes from crazy and constantly changing internal mail.ru message processing logic. Anyway - Google doesn't dance around problems, it creates them at enormous rate because of constant code and logic refactoring. Google works more or less stable only with Google.

No, one hour of creating a VM and configuring Postfix/Dovecot/Spamassasin/Sieve/Roundcube for next 5-10 problem-free years of uptime without any admin activity except free space monitoring - it's not time consuming at all. :) There is a simple rule: if you can live in the hotel for many years - you can safely use GMail or Cloud Exchange, but if you want to be able to hammer some nails into the wall or change the furniture - you need your own home. The range of opportunities in that cases is simply incomparable.