Is your BlackBerry repeatedly asking you to validate your Gmail password?

As we’ve learned in our nearly four years of writing BBGeeks, BlackBerry users experience plenty of problems with their devices. Some of these are critical issues — for instance, your BlackBerry got wet — while others are minor annoyances. One issue that I consider pretty critical is the timely delivery of email. This is the one advantage that BlackBerry has over other platforms, so if it’s malfunctioning that’s a problem. Lately I’ve experienced a problem with my Gmail account that prevents mail delivery, and from what I’ve found some of you are, too. As with most issues, there’s a decently easy fix to the issue. Specifically, the issue is that I keep getting an email telling me that I need to validate my Gmail password. This is odd, because normally you validate once and that’s it. I’ve had issues before where I’ve had to validate a password, but it pops up every once in a while. This has happened three or four times since last Saturday. Once that email appears in my inbox, I receive no more emails until I go in and validate. That would be easy enough, except there’s another issue that goes along with it. With BlackBerry 6.0 we got a new setup interface. With 5.0, even, you can validate your email right from your device. I’m not sure about the issues with 5.0, but with 6.0 I’ve come across the following issue. The first time I got the validate email it was fine. I loaded Setup and went to Email Accounts. I then clicked on Gmail, validated my password, and was fine. But the next time it happened, when I clicked on Email Accounts it brought me to the screen that sets up a new email address. The only way to actually get to the validation screen was to pull the battery and try then. Of course, this got annoying by the fourth validation email. From what I gather, some people have had trouble with the validation itself. That’s even more annoying, as you won’t receive email until the validation process is complete. After some searching I’ve found what appears to be a solution. It has worked for me so far, in that I have not received any emails telling me I need to validate my address since this weekend. After you get your validation email, go to https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and enter in your information, plus the captcha code. Then go in and validate your Gmail password. I’m not sure if this permanently fixes things; as I said, it has only been a few days since my last validation email. I’ve seen forum reports that this only works temporarily. But it should help for people who can’t get through the validation process period. For those who, like me, can get through the process but get them repeatedly, maybe this will work, too. While BlackBerry does provide the best email among all smartphone platforms, the Gmail issues have become overwhelming. At first there was no two-way sync. Now there is, but it takes at least two hours for the syncing to catch up. Now we have this validation issue. Gmail is probably the most popular — or at least most actively popular — webmail platform right now. Why can’t RIM properly accommodate it?

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.