I posted over at the SEW Blog today about Gmail going down yet again for me, not allowing me to POP download. Just out of the blue, suddenly I was given username and password errors as I've had before.

Usually, I've been able to correct these errors in various ways, as I've covered in these past posts:

• Gmail, Can I Have My Mail Via Pop? Computer Says No: Error 0X800CC92
• More Gmail Sending & Receiving Woes
• Gail & Error 0x800CCC7D In Outlook 2003

Today, there was no such luck. A solid 12 hours after I first got the error, I was still unable to download mail, leaving me more than a little irritated. So I shot off a second email into the oblivion of Gmail support, then saw a link to the Gmail Help Discussion Forum on the page confirming my message had been sent. Could that area help? At the very least, were there others reporting this problem?

Turns out, there's an entire POP and Forwarding section. In it, I came across this thread where someone reported similar problems. Try the Captcha Unlock form, someone advised.

Captcha unlock? That's the first I'd heard of this form. But I gave it a shot, going to the page and entering the code shown. Sure enough, I could access the account again!

On the downside, in trying to get things working earlier today, I tried shutting off POP downloading in my settings and then reenabling it "for mail that arrives from now on." When it came back up, it said I could now download all mail since April 20, 2004.

That was odd. I've downloaded all my mail well after that date. But I didn't worry much. I only had about 30 messages in my inbox. Surely only those would get downloaded.

As it turned out, Gmail sent over 250 messages from around April 21 and nothing past that, nothing in my inbox currently. OK, I tagged all those emails for deletion. Then I tried again. Gmail wanted to send me them all over again!

Next, I tried changing the settings to enabling downloading of all mail. Same problem -- Gmail still wanted me to get all 250 messages.

There was only one option left. I tried again to "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on." This time, the April 20 date went away, replaced by the time today I'd reenabled things. Upside? Gmail stopped trying to send me those 250 old messages. Downside? My 30 fresh new messages still sit in my inbox.

Well, at least I'm moving ahead. I'll forward out those messages in my inbox or deal with them and hope Gmail doesn't get funky again in the future.

Meanwhile, I went back to understand why the captcha thing was a mystery to me. I've been through Gmail's help pages before when Outlook has produced its mystery errors such as 0X800CC92 or 0x800CCC7D. Here's the key help page at Gmail about the issue.

POP: I keep receiving prompts to enter my username and password

That page says nothing about captcha unlocking, nada.

I went up a level to review ALL the POP Access topics. Nothing there helpful. I used the Gmail help area search box, looking for the word captcha. Nothing. Finally, I resorted to a Google search of the entire help area for captcha. That brought up this page, POP: I'm having problems downloading mail, which is NOT listed at all on that top level guide to POP access help. It says:

If you see a 'captcha' (a security image with distorted letters), you'll need to log in before you can enable POP access. If you're locked out of your account, please wait one hour and log in to Gmail again.

OK, now I'm on the right track. The problem is, I never saw a captcha like this. I was able to log into Gmail through the web successfully, and Google Talk was also able to get in. It was only my POP access that had to be unlocked for some reason -- and nowhere did Gmail ever tell me it was locked nor did point me to the unlocking page.

Looking at another Google Groups thread, I found a page for reporting lockout problems. Woah! This was unlike any error reporting page I'd seen before, such as the one I've used twice today.

To be clear, in Gmail, there's a Report Bug link in the top right hand corner. That link brings up a fairly simple reporting form for an email address, subject and a summary of the bug problem.

In contrast, this super reporting form asks for much more information about your computer, if a firewall is running, special error messages I've never heard of such as "lockdown in Sector 6" and more.

Why hadn't I seen this page before? Using the breadcrumb at the top of the page, I backed up into the Contact Us area for Gmail. Then I went into the likely path to reach the form, Help With A Technical Issue > POP Access which in turn suggested that POP: I'm having problems downloading mail message that's not listed on the general help page.

At the bottom of that is a Report a technical issue link. Clicking on that brings up a help request form -- but not the short ones I've seen nor the longer one I've mentioned earlier. It brings up a THIRD Gmail error reporting form.

So let me recap the absurdity of all this:

1. The specific help page matching the error I've been getting says nothing about unlocking my account using the captcha form.
2. No other help pages point at the magical form, either.
3. There are at least three different help request forms that Gmail is using.

Fair to say, things could be a heck of a lot better in providing support over there, just in cleaning up the help area alone.

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