POSTFIX fatal: no SASL authentication mechanisms

I am struggling with the error above for more than 5 hours. I had tried to remove Postfix completely and I had followed the instructions of the next manual and the SASL manual in order to reinstall it.

When I am trying to login with telnet, the server blocks the login and I am getting this:(with smtpd -v for more verbose):

postfix/smtpd[26301]: xsasl_cyrus_server_create: SASL service=smtp, realm=(null)  
postfix/smtpd[26301]: name_mask: noanonymous  
postfix/smtpd[26301]: warning:   xsasl_cyrus_server_get_mechanism_list: no applicable SASL mechanisms  
postfix/smtpd[26301]: fatal: no SASL authentication mechanisms  

here are the results of postconf -n:

alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
allow_percent_hack = no
append_dot_mydomain = no
biff = no
broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes
config_directory = /etc/postfix
home_mailbox = Maildir/
inet_interfaces = all
mailbox_command = /usr/bin/procmail-wrapper -o -a $DOMAIN -d $LOGNAME
mailbox_size_limit = 0
mydestination = theflipapp.com, localhost.com, , localhost
myhostname = theflipapp.com
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128
myorigin = /etc/mailname
readme_directory = no
recipient_delimiter = +
relayhost =
sender_bcc_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/bcc
smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache
smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Debian/GNU)
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks permit_sasl_authenticated reject_unauth_destination
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache
smtpd_use_tls = yes
virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

postfix master config:

root@domain:/# cat /etc/postfix/master.cf | grep ^smtp
smtp    inet    n       -       -       -       -       smtpd -v -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes
smtp      unix  -       -       -       -       -       smtp

Hopes this data will help you to help me..

You can have saslauthd installed but not have any mechanisms installed. It's quite frustrating and poor error-proofing, IMO.

"no applicable SASL mechanisms" literally means it can't find any of its mechanisms. On a Fedora-based system you'd need to install the cyrus-sasl-plain package if you want to use the 'PLAIN' auth mechanisms (i.e. SMTP/STARTTLS).

yum install cyrus-sasl-plain

or

apt-get install libsasl2-modules

the solution was very simple, the SASL daemon was down. /etc/init.d/saslauthd start

Some hacker managed to shut it down again and again so eventually I had closed it completely.