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In Python 2.6 PLAIN authentication works, in Python 3.1 not.
Lib/test/test_imaplib.py does not test IMAP4.authenticate() or IMAP4.login_cram_md5() functions, only IMAP4.login().
I would still like to go back to imaplib._Authenticator.encode() function. The function is below.
# inp = authobject(response)
def encode(self, inp):
 oup = ''
 while inp:
 if len(inp) > 48:
 t = inp[:48]
 inp = inp[48:]
 else:
 t = inp
 inp = ''
 e = binascii.b2a_base64(t)
 if e:
 oup = oup + e[:-1]
 return oup
binascii.b2a_base64() takes bytes, so inp must therefore be bytes, and returns bytes (Python 3). Then str + bytes (out + e[:-1]) fails.
The fix would then be changing 
 oup = oup + e[:-1]
to
 oup = oup + e[:-1].decode()