Emacs gnus (tls) IMAP connection problems with Google

[Kostas Zorbadelos]

Hello all,

I use emacs gnus for all my mail handling mostly over IMAP.
A recent upgrade in my Arch system left me with a very strange
problem. My software versions:

GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30)
 of 2018-07-05

gnutls 3.6.5-4

My .gnus.el hasn't changed for a very long time, looking like this: 

(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "gmail"
                                  (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")
                                  (nnimap-server-port 993)
                                  (nnimap-stream ssl)
                                  (nnimap-authinfo-file "~/.authinfo.gpg")))

Everything worked very well until I got the following errors connecting
to Google's IMAP service (could be that a recent gnutls upgrade is
responsible, older versions of emacs and gnutls I use in other Linux
systems have no such issue)  

*Messages*
Opening nnimap server on gmail...
Opening connection to imap.gmail.com via tls...
Unable to open server nnimap+gmail due to: Process *nnimap*<1> not running
Opening nnimap server on gmail...failed:

Sometimes however (rarely) the connections are established OK. 

Unfortunately, I could not debug this, I am at a loss. Trying to get
more info, I found a workaround by setting

(setq gnutls-log-level 2)

in .gnus.el. So, when gnutls debugging is turned on, seems the problem
is hiding (timing issue?). Since mail handling is a core activity for me
I would highly appreciate any help in debugging and solving the
issue. Let me know if and how I can provide any logs / further info. I
run a current version of Arch Linux (updated today).
If you think this list is not appropriate for the issue, feel free to
suggest a more proper place for the discussion.

Regards,
Kostas Zorbadelos