Setting Up Application-Specific Passwords in Google Accounts

goog_app_specific_passwords.txt

Just set up 2-factor authorizations for your Google login?  Facing puzzling error
messages?  Follow this simple set of 24 steps, each and every time one of your apps 
fails to sign in:

1: Bring up iCal and feast your eyes upon the following horribly vague error message: 

**iCal can't log in to your "Google" account because your password may be incorrect.
The password may have been entered incorrectly. Reenter the password for account 
“Google” on the CalDAV server "calendar.google.com."**

2: Try entering your passsword.  Nope.  Clearly your account has been hacked.

3: Panic and sign in to Gmail via the Web.  Okay, that worked; quit hyperventilating.  (Useful thing to think about right now: changing out that one password you've been 
using on everything since the days when MySpace told you to keep it secret, keep it 
safe.)

4: Try iCal again.  Nope.  Then remember that you set up 2-step verification for your 
Google accounts, on the recommendation of a security-conscious co-worker.  Slap your 
forehead, hit Cancel and quit iCal.

5: Sign in at <https://accounts.google.com>.

6: Under Security, look for "2-step verification."  It should say it's on; if it 
doesn't, your account has been hosed for some other reason.  

7: Stare in vain for any clue about what you need to do next.

8: Keep staring until tiny beads of blood form on your forehead.

9: Out of sheer desperation, click the tiny Edit link, next to where it says "On" next 
to "2-step verification." In any sane universe, this would edit the state of your 
2-step verification, turning it from On to Off and vice versa, but you are in the 
Googleverse now.

10: Here's a page full of stuff about adding a phone number, printing backup codes, 
and clearing settings. About three-quarters of the way down you'll see a link that 
says "Manage application-specific passwords."  Click it.

11: Ha-ha!  You're back at step 2, sign in at <https://accounts.google.com>!  Hit your 
Back button; this can't be right.

12: **Damn you all to hell!**  There can't be any other thing to try, so hit "Manage 
application-specific passwords" again and sign in **again**.  Perhaps that will work?

13: Here's the Authorized Access to your Google Account page.  And although iCal is not 
specifically mentioned by the iCal error, you need to generate an "application-
specific password." 

14: Enter a name for the thing you're generating a new password for. In our case this 
is iCal, but you can call it anything you want.  (Mine have names like "another 
goddamn mail.app password," "fuck," "fucking fuck," "fuckity fucking FUCK," and "I hate Google's interaction design department with a mad screaming passion.")  For the purposes of this demonstration, let's call it "fucking iCal." Do so, and click the Generate Password button.

15: Gaze upon the bleakness of your new application-specific password, which consists 
of the surnames of the Czech olympic volleyball team:  **qwrx hjwk lprn tzks**.

16: Click the Done button by mistake.

17: Um. Neat. You're now back at the Authorized Access page, which will never, ever tell 
you any of your application-specific passwords.

18: Say it with me: **"oh, shit."**  Hit your Back button to try to get back to the page 
that once held your new czechword.

19: **Ha-ha-haaah!**  You are back at step 2, which is: sign in at <https://accounts.google.com>!

20: From here you can sign in again or try hitting your Forward button, growling "yes, I 
understand, submit the fucking form again."  Either way you wind up on the Authorized 
Access to your Google Account page again, and you absolutely positively cannot the password you just generated.

21: Click the Revoke link next to "fucking iCal" and repeat steps 14 and 15.  **Do not fail to copy the password to your clipboard this time, you jackass.**

22: Pop iCal open once more and enter this password into the blank, all the while 
shivering with fear against the possibility that you've just changed your Google 
password to something that looks like four Canadian postal codes.

23: Hooray! It worked!  Go check that your root Google password hasn't changed.  Hooray! It hasn't! Surf that endorphin rush!

24: Forget everything that just happened until something else fails.  This will happen 
anywhere from 15 to 30 days from now, depending on how often you told Google Accounts 
to expire your application-specific passwords.  (Good luck finding that setting to 
adjust it, by the way.)