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.Mac Mail Errors

T

TheT

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 5, 2002
485
0
Germany
I've had this for days now... my primary account is my .Mac one, and of course I use all the default IMAP settings... it's set up like that for ages and it has always worked.
But the last couple of days, Mail sometimes pops up and asks me for my password. I type it, it doesn't accept it, I type it again, after a while I give up, quit Mail and restart a couple of minutes later. Then it works flawlessly, until Mail asks me again... any idea what could be wrong?
 
I've been dealing with the same kind of issues off and on for six months now. What's worse than that is the spam problem. I had to delete 28 spam messages today that acumulated over a two day period. All of them sent to debunk at mac.com, which isn't remotely close to my .Mac address. It's getting really annoying.

d8n_two
 
Diatribe said:
Funny I am having the same problems. Not the spam though. Would be interesting to know what is causing those problems...
Click to expand...
I was thinking that I'm not the only one... seems to be an error on the .Mac servers. Is that what we're paying 100 bucks for? :(
 
I had that problem last fall quite a bit after opening my .Mac account. Then they stopped happening the first of the year...then only once in 2004. I had to enter my password today but it accepted it and works fine. I have not had one bit of spam to .Mac...far cry from my aol days.
 
This was pissing me off so much, I even went to the .Mac support forums... here's what I found:
.Mac Support Forums said:
Greetings,

We are aware of an ongoing issue that has been causing some to receive an authentication error message when checking for new messages. Those using .Mac Mail Online may see the "We're Sorry" page. The cause of this is being investigated. As it is, please be aware that the duration of these issues has been short. Checking the address later without making any changes to the account settings will allow any new messages to be received. No mail will be lost. Any messages sent to the account during this time will be queued for delivery as the load on the mail store subsides. Further information will be posted about this as it becomes available.

Thank you for your patience.

.Mac Support

---

This error message may be seen by some .Mac members while we upgrade portions of the .Mac Mail system. Not only should this error only be seen once (if at all), quitting and re-opening Mail will resolve the issue and allow you to view your mail. Our email system upgrade will be complete on May 6th, 2004.

Regards,
Chris
.Mac Support
Click to expand...
Link
May 6th :eek: I'm starting to think I better use those 100 bucks for something else...
 
TheT said:
This was pissing me off so much, I even went to the .Mac support forums... here's what I found:

Link
May 6th :eek: I'm starting to think I better use those 100 bucks for something else...
Click to expand...

It looks like your quotes from the support forums is partially talking about the online mail web page...but then it goes on to talk about quitting Mail app. so I don't know. I know that the last two days it has been asking for my password for my mail, but at the same time it has been recieving my mail no problem. I was even checking the box to remember my password, but it is still asking me two or three times a day for it.
 
flyfish29 said:
It looks like your quotes from the support forums is partially talking about the online mail web page...but then it goes on to talk about quitting Mail app. so I don't know. I know that the last two days it has been asking for my password for my mail, but at the same time it has been recieving my mail no problem. I was even checking the box to remember my password, but it is still asking me two or three times a day for it.
Click to expand...
I found it in the ".Mac Desktop Mail" section, but they probably posted the same thing in the ".Mac Online Mail" part as well, since people seem to have problems there, too. I am starting to think that I am simply too lazy to change my eMail address.. but $99 for lazyness is even too much for me. I'll wait 'til my membership-year is over, and if there's nothing brilliant happening with .Mac, I don't see me renewing my membership... Spymac's services, though it's Spymac, are not bad at all... for free!
 
I've had that problem a few times before, too. I got frustrated and went into keychain to check things out. No problems there. Then, finally, I tried logging into mail from mac.com and got a "servers are down" message. I tried later and everything was cool.

I've never once received spam at my .mac account. Strange.

Squire
 
I been have the same problem the last weeks on my G5 and my girlfriend has had the problem for 3 months now. I was going to clean install her computer today until i saw this tread.
 
Happened to me again yesterday. Twice. It's buggin' the hell outta me. If they don't fix this problem soon, I won't dish out the $100 again. It's getting to a point where it is getting ridiculous.
Thanks TheT for looking that up. Let's hope May 6th is true.
 
that doesnt happen with my Mail.app/.Mac account at all.
Well, to tell you the truth, it does happen, but its usually some mistake on my part.
Certainly won't regret spooning out $60 (2 referrals :p) for another year of .mac. I don't think I can handle Spymac, I hate it with a passion. Can't wait for Gmail...:) screw invasion of privacy, we have like no privacy online.
 
I got it as well, after receiving my mail I cleaned my mailbox on the server, there still was some very old mail over there. I had no spam. After I deleted some mail, almost everything was gone, weird!
 
Could it be a hiccup in your online connection? If you're connected wirelessly and you move around (or if your signal is weak) or if your ISP isn't totally reliable, then this might the cause of your problem. For me, it's the latter—my ISP sucks. I only have this problem when my online connection is severed. Even if the "severage" is brief and mostly unnoticeable to me, if Mail.app is checks for email during a momentary outage it will often give me that message. This would explain why Apple hasn't been able to identify the cause of the problem: it's not on their end.

Also, at least in Jaguar (I don't have the problem now), I would sometimes get the .mac password prompt right after I logged in (Mail.app is set to automatically open when I log in). I think the problem was that the Keychain wasn't accesssible immediately. I don't have that problem with Panther, though.

Anyway, there is no reason why you should need to resubmit your password. Just click cancel when that comes up. It will automatically retrieve email as soon as the mysterious blockage is ended.

And I never get spam. In fact the only mail that goes in my Junk folder is stuff that was sent to me by a known sender (i.e. a site that I bought something from or have a membership with) that I just don't want to read. My student email account (which I no longer use because I've graduated), on the other hand, is flooded with thousands of pieces of spam. I think the spam filtering alone makes .mac worth it.
 
Awimoway said:
Anyway, there is no reason why you should need to resubmit your password. Just click cancel when that comes up. It will automatically retrieve email as soon as the mysterious blockage is ended.
Click to expand...

If I click cancel I have to manually reconnect my mailbox in mail for it to check again. This is what annoys me.
 
Awimoway said:
Could it be a hiccup in your online connection? If you're connected wirelessly and you move around (or if your signal is weak) or if your ISP isn't totally reliable, then this might the cause of your problem. For me, it's the latter—my ISP sucks. I only have this problem when my online connection is severed. Even if the "severage" is brief and mostly unnoticeable to me, if Mail.app is checks for email during a momentary outage it will often give me that message. This would explain why Apple hasn't been able to identify the cause of the problem: it's not on their end.
Click to expand...
No. No wireless, same wire I used for 4 years now... it's on their end. Everything else, including my other email account that is checked simultaniously, works without problems.
Awimoway said:
I think the spam filtering alone makes .mac worth it.
Click to expand...
Did I miss something? If you want to praise Junk Mail, it's part of the Mail app, not .Mac. AFAIK, .Mac doesn't have any special spam filter. People just don't spam you@mac.com as often as you@imonapc.com... :rolleyes:
 
TheT said:
Did I miss something? If you want to praise Junk Mail, it's part of the Mail app, not .Mac. AFAIK, .Mac doesn't have any special spam filter. People just don't spam you@mac.com as often as you@imonapc.com... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I don't feel like looking it up, but I believe .mac does have some kind of filter.

Edit: I changed my mind and did look for proof. You might want to take your rolling eyeballs and screw them back in straight:

From .mac Mail FAQ:
If you're receiving unwanted messages, there are three basic ways for you to deal with this.
1. You can set up filters... [the rest edited out to save space -Awimoway]

2. You can contact the administrator of the domain from which the spam is originating... [the rest edited out to save space -Awimoway]

3. You can report any received spam to .Mac System administrators by sending the message along with the full source headers to buse@mac.com. A .Mac administrator will examine the message and headers. If the message is verified to be SPAM, that message will be filtered at the server before it reaches your mailbox.
Click to expand...

I have never submitted any such headers to .Mac sysadmin because I've never had to. But I imagine that if they will accept any headers I send then they block a lot of them on their own. It's in their own interest to filter out spam and minimize wasted storage space on their servers.




Edit 2: I have found more detailed info on this at the .Mac Mail Support discussion board. This is from the moderator, Chris, who fields users' questions. You can find the original post in a thread titled "Incredible Number of SPAM Coming from .Mac" started by maczag (I guess maczag wasn't so lucky):


All,

There is no one strategy that is 100% effective when it comes to managing Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) (better known as spam). Those intent on delivering it have proven themselves to be ingenious at coming up with ways around single method filtration schemes. Apple is passionate about preventing spam from intruding into the inboxes of its .Mac members. To this end we employ several spam detection and elimination methods.

Implemented at the server level, BrightMail™ uses moment-by-moment trends to identify and remove spam before it gets to your inbox. For more information about BrightMail™, please visit their website by using the preceding link.
In addition to BrightMail™ list-based filtering is used. This prevents known spam sources from even sending to .Mac Mail recipients. Although not as dynamic as BrightMail, this is responsible for stopping much of the inbox-filling content that is sent every day.
.Mac also monitors all incoming message activity for trends. This information can reveal that a previously unknown source of spam has begun to send to the .Mac community.
Click to expand...

I hope your eyes are resting comfortably now. :D
 
Diatribe said:
If I click cancel I have to manually reconnect my mailbox in mail for it to check again. This is what annoys me.
Click to expand...

Has it always done this?

Assuming you have entered your password in the accounts preferences window and all. You might try setting another account up with the same info and see how it works. Starting from scratch might fix the issue.
 
I have had this same problem, but it's usually transient for me. It'll prompt me for the password and reject it; I quit Mail.app and restart it, and it works again. I have also experienced the problem where .Mac webmail doesn't refresh its display when you log in until you do something, like try to delete an old message that really isn't there anymore.
 
Awimoway said:
I don't feel like looking it up, but I believe .mac does have some kind of filter.
(...)
Edit: I changed my mind and did look for proof. You might want to take your rolling eyeballs and screw them back in straight:(TheT tries to do that and looks something like this: :eek: )
(...)
I hope your eyes are resting comfortably now. (TheT has to cover his eyes because of the bright shining light of truth :cool: )
Click to expand...
Well, thanks, I didn't know that. Something good about .Mac! :rolleyes:
 
flyfish29 said:
Has it always done this?

Assuming you have entered your password in the accounts preferences window and all. You might try setting another account up with the same info and see how it works. Starting from scratch might fix the issue.
Click to expand...

Yes it has unfortunately. I'll try that with the other account although I doubt that it is a mail.app problem rather than a .mac problem.
 
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