Connecting Adium to Google Talk with a 2-factor authentication account isn’t working

Anyone else having this problem? After turning on 2-factor authentication on my Google Account I stopped being able to log in through Adium (Mac IM client that uses Pidgin’s libpurple for IM). Obviously you need to generate an application-specific password but these won’t let me log in. Application specific passwords work with other applications (e.g. Reeder for feeds and calendering on my phone). Google specifically mention Adium in their examples of setting up an application password for Google Talk so I doubt it’s a generic Adium problem.

I can still access Google Talk for this account if I use a talk widget on a Google Website (Plus, or iGoogle for example).

My bug report to Adium including a connection log file is up on their Trac: http://trac.adium.im/ticket/15310 . No activity there though. I also asked around in their IRC channel but no-one else could replicate the problem.

If I had to guess then I’d think it was a consequence of me not having a GMail account associated with my Google account. I don’t see exactly why that would cause it, but it seems like a fairly unusual setup that might not have been tested for.

Robin Whittleton

Posted 2012-04-18T12:00:44.047

Reputation: 411

I just enabled two factor authentication and seem to remember a notice that it wasn't fully implemented for chat and a few other applications. – BillThor – 2012-04-18T12:04:17.020

Google specifically mention Adium as compatible on this page: http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=185833

– Robin Whittleton – 2012-04-18T12:15:51.687

Answers

The specific answer for my original question is that I have an unsupported setup in trying to use a 3rd-party chat client without a Gmail account associated with my Google account. This was pointed out to me by an Adium engineer and is detailed on this Google help page:

https://support.google.com/chat/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=159495

Robin Whittleton

Posted 2012-04-18T12:00:44.047

Reputation: 411

Try using the password generator in gmail settings. When you type in the name of the application it generates an application specific password. However, in the box you should not type in 'Adium' as your application name. Instead, you should put "GoogleTalk/Pidgin" as your application name. Paste the generated password in your adium login and you will be set!

helicopter

Posted 2012-04-18T12:00:44.047

Reputation: 591

2Label is just to be able to differentiate between different passwords - in case you want to revoke access to one of the applications, it's easier to find them. – Krystian – 2014-07-23T07:27:16.150

I don’t have a GMail account associated with this Google account. However, I tried what you suggested from the ‘Authorised Access’ section of my google account settings and it didn’t work (in the same way as before). Thanks for the suggestion though. – Robin Whittleton – 2012-06-18T10:16:30.870

1+1000 thanks this worked perfectly. – Dan Rosenstark – 2012-10-13T22:09:52.777

1Any reason to choose a specific label? It appears to be just for your own consumption when later reviewing the list. – phs – 2013-11-18T18:14:45.093

Check out this link:
http://help.trillian.im/discussions/web-questions/25-google-talk-login-widget-not-accepting-my-new-passwords

Specifically, they mentioned going to:
https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha ..and then trying to sign in with your client.

They also recommend creating a new application password and ensure your client hasn't cached your old one.

Ralph Willgoss

Posted 2012-04-18T12:00:44.047

Reputation: 159

1Thanks for your reply. I just tried that though and it doesn’t work (tried deleted my pre-existing accounts as well etc etc). It does however give me a new route to look down, so I’ll do a bit of investigating of this. – Robin Whittleton – 2012-04-30T10:38:19.330

The DisplayUnlockCaptcha link definitely seemed to help me out. – Christopher Smith – 2012-08-08T18:39:10.170

As of May 2013, Google is planning on dropping XMPP support when they migrate from Google Talk to Google Hangouts. XMPP is the protocol that third party clients like Adium use to connect to Google Talk.

My employer switched everyone on their Google App domain over to Google Hangout yesterday. I cannot connect with Pidgin with my employee email address, while my personal Google account still connects because I have not moved over to Hangouts.

Walter Wilfinger

Posted 2012-04-18T12:00:44.047

Reputation: 31

You need to create and app password https://myaccount.google.com/. Look for app password and create a new app called "GoogleTalk/Pidgin". Then use the password generated to login.

Deprecated Darren

Posted 2012-04-18T12:00:44.047

Reputation: 109