Comment 33 for bug 1029289

@Clint: the only steps required for reproducing this bug is having a Google account configured in the Online Accounts applet in the System Settings. Once the account is configured, several programs including Empathy (the chat) and the Unity Dash search will make use of it automatically.
Normally, the user will not be asked to reauthenticate the Google account, at least not before a month has expired since the account was created (or authenticated last): the chat would work whenever one needs, and searching in the Dash would just work.
However, when this bug occurs, the user will be asked to reauthenticate the Google account. It's hard to tell when that happens; as you see, different users have reported different times and situations; I myself did not experience this problem at all. It might depend on the user's geographic location, or any funny logic in Google's servers.

I'll check once again about the account-plugins upload.