Mail keeps rejecting my password

[sayward]

Same Problem Recently Started 4 days Ago

I've had multiple gmail and yahoo IMAP accounts pushed to the MacOS mail client on my MBP along with my iPad and iPhone for several years. My MBP has been on Lion since it came out and the latest software update is installed, and both IOS devices are updated to the OS 5.1.1. Back in April my wife had a problem with her Yahoo account where it continually failed the password authentication as described in this thread—which mysteriously stopped about a month after it started—but I haven't had an issue. Until now.

My Yahoo IMAP account started posting the authentication error about 4 days ago—I had not recently changed my password, it had been the same password for about a month—and continues to post the error with intermittent periods where it will fetch mail. I can login into my Yahoo account online, I can receive mail on my iPad and iPhone—though there is some interesting behavior there, which I'll describe below.

I have tried separately the following to fix it without success:
- logging in on webmail to confirm password
- closing and re-opening the app, multiple times
- rebooting
- deleting all Yahoo imap and smtp keychain entries then re-entering the passwords when prompted, multiple times
- deleting the Yahoo account and then adding the account back in
- changing the password online, trying all combinations of short, long, strong, weak, numbers only, etc
- turning off push on all devices, and going to manual mail fetch
- logging out of yahoo online, waiting overnight to confirm that there is one and only one mail client, the MBP trying to receive mail

And now this morning, I find that my gmail imap authentication is failing. Hmmm... At this point, I am about to wipe the MBP, reinstall the OS and manually recover my data. I had a keychain issue several years ago courtesy of MS Office and that took care of it, along with not reinstalling Office.

Some of the interesting behavior:
- I can send mail through both accounts, so smtp will authenticate, but sometimes it takes several minutes to send a short mail, which I assume means lots of retries.
- When the problem first occurred, my IOS devices were receiving mail without complaint. To see what would happen, I went into settings on each device, entered the (correct) password, and in each case, the password was rejected. After waiting an hour, I changed the password online and re-entered the password on all devices, and the IOS devices validated correctly and have been working since. Since changing to manual mail (and by the way, I may keep this setting as I only miss the notifications which I tend to ignore—mail is updated whenever I open it so I don't feel that I am missing anything while saving a bit of battery life).
- Often an action such as changed password, switching to manual mail fetch, updating the smtp password in the mail prefs, will result in a successful authentication and mail fetch, but shortly (within 4 hours), the failure mode will return.

So, it's happening here. I've read through the forums I can find and don't see a good explanation. Mac Mail seems generally intolerant of networking behavior in general—try using the app within several minutes of your wifi coverage dropping, for example—so I suspect that there is something going on at the server end that it isn't handling robustly.

 

[sayward]

Same Yahoo IMAP Failure Problem—Update

Just to update my last post.

My Gmail connection issue is unrelated to the Yahoo one and was resolved by reviewing the suggestions on Apple's Mail troubleshooting page here, and following the procedure on Google's clearing the CAPTCHA page.

The Apple page recommended using the Connection Doctor logging tool (under the Window menu). I used the tool and after examining the logs, the Yahoo failures are in fact server errors returned from a login attempt; not invalid name/password, but rather some other type of server error: LOGIN failure. Server error--please try again after some time. Error code OCF12. The Mail app is posting a misleading error dialog, but beyond that it's not clear what's causing the issue.

 

[mentaluproar]

Steve's ghost: "You're clicking it wrong."

 

[Bee Flat]

MAIL drops Settings

I have similar problem on my iPad. MAIL works for a few days and then rejects username or password with no explanation. A call to Apple really did not provide any viable solution. I can try to reset MAIL to Gmail and it may work but most likely will not ... It may begin to work on its own next day ... Maybe.

If anybody has advice, I would certainly appreciate it. My first Apple product ... Not impressed!!!

 

[scfc]

yahoo mail error in Mail app

For quite some time now errors with yahoo mail.
Regularly one gets an error message stating:

The Yahoo! IMAP server “imap.mail.yahoo.com” rejected the password for user etc..

Connection doctor says:
No (unavailable) LOGIN failure. server error--please try again after some time. error code 0CF12

Non of the mentioned changes help, have done them all cleaned all mentioning of yahoo mail (also in keychain) to no avail. Issue does not happen on IOS (i'm guessing better timeout management) and yes no problem logging into yahoo website. I have multiple yahoo accounts all with similar problem.

I'm not sure if it Mail app, although I suspect so. I do suspect a combination with load\timeout on Yahoo server. Might be related to push as the app seems to connect very often to the server.

PS
time to notify Yahoo and Apple. so please everyone let's inform them.

 

[RideMan]

Yahoo!'s fault...

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what is going on here. Why the yahoos at Yahoo! can't seem to fix it is well beyond me.

I have a non-trivial number of mail accounts with Yahoo! that are connected to my DSL service, plus another Yahoo! account that apparently has a mail service that I never actually use. Of those various accounts, only the DSL Primary account has password problems. Other than that, it doesn't matter whether I am using POP or IMAP, although I have not had problems using iOS Push. One Mac is running OS-X.IV.XI (Tiger); the other is running OS-X.VI.VIII (Snow Leopard). The OS version doesn't matter; this is Yahoo!'s problem.

The problem is that Yahoo! or AT&T or sbcglobal or whatever they are calling themselves today uses multiple servers to handle their push, POP, and imap services. In other words, when you open a connection to imap.mail.yahoo.com, you are actually asking Yahoo! to connect you to any of several servers that all respond to the same gateway address. I'm not sure exactly how they do this because I am not a network guy, but in about ten minutes of pinging mail servers, I've come up with two different IP addresses and four different host names for the same address:

imap.mail.yahoo.com:
98.138.24.42 - imap413.mail.vip.ne1.yahoo.com
98.138.24.42 - imap.mail.global.g1.b.yahoo.com
98.139.218.251 - imap.mail.global.g1.b.yahoo.com
98.139.218.251 - imap.mail.us.a03.yahoodns.net

So far I have only seen those two IP addresses, but I have seen four different names, and notice that one of the names has shown up on two different IP addresses. So only Yahoo! really knows how many servers are responding to imap.mail.yahoo.com.

What this suggests to me is that the real problem is that one or more of the servers is not properly managing authentication data. That is, one of the machines is probably pointed at a different authentication server (or authentication server cluster; who knows how Yahoo! has that set up!) so that the particular mail server does not properly authenticate against your username and password. This would also explain why resetting your account password sometimes (but not always) fixes the problem. Given that account information may be spread among more than one Yahoo! or AT&T server, it may be that there are multiple sources for authentication, and one or more of the IMAP servers isn't properly authenticating against one or more of the authentication servers. That would explain why the problem doesn't consistently affect multiple accounts being accessed simultaneously. Because it is a server-level authentication problem, it is isolated (for the moment) to IMAP connections, which AT&T and Yahoo! apparently are doing their darnedest not to support anyway. It also explains why one computer can authenticate all day long and the one next to it cannot, even though both are using the same hostname for the mail server.

I thought I had figured out a workaround when I realized that the gateway server (imap.mail.yahoo.com) was resolving to multiple addresses. But I have since seen one of the servers show up on two different IP addresses. I think I'll do some experimenting and see if I can get either consistent success or consistent failure by specifying one of the "real" server names. The problem with doing that is that it isn't a solution by any means, because the first time Yahoo! decides to make a change to the cluster, that server name will change or go away. That's one of the real benefits to the way they are set up: if they need to swap out a server, the other ones keep working and continue responding to queries to the same IP address and host name.

The bottom line is that this is something that Yahoo! has to fix. Nothing we can do as users will fix it for them, and the fundamental design of their email system *insures* that there is nothing we can do to fix the problem.

 

[xtedx]

yahoo's problem, i think.

happens to me too.
it just goes away after a few hours, and it comes back in a few days.

i think the server is just overloaded or something.

tried deleting password in keychain/restart but didn't work within a few minutes, the same problem appeared

usually i just use the browser or use my iphone 3g ios 4.2.1 to check and its no problem.

 

[nzacl0]

i experienced this problem about a week ago with two separate NZ ISP's. I could not fix it - I ended up installing thunderbird and could connect with no problems - so I suspect it's in the mail client somewhere.

 

[wordup60]

The problem is number of concurrent IMAP connections

This is not limited to 10.8. I've been having the problem since 10.6.

According to my ISP (I run my own mail server), the problem is that they are limiting the number of concurrent IMAP connections the server will allow per account.

Apple Mail seems to be going above that number, opening at least one each for inbox, junk, trash and sent, and possibly more.

I am sometimes fine for days, then the problem reoccurs, mostly
- when one of my mobile devices (iPhone, iPad) connects as well
- when I switch to another wifi network or from wired to wifi

Sometimes entering the password three times solves it, sometimes even a dozen times doesn't help, sometimes just waiting does (presumably until at least some of the IMAP connections time out).

I've asked the ISP to increase the allowed number of concurrent IMAP sessions but they said no can do.

If there were a way to limit the number of sessions Mail tries to open, that could solve the problem.

 

[artbay]

Mac Mail and Yahoo mail (also att

LIke many I have been plagued with email problems using mac mail 4.5 with osx 10.6.8. Att is my isp and yahoo.com my email address. For those who don't know ATT uses yahoo as their mail backbone, and all att mail goes through yahoo servers.

After looking everywhere and trying the useless att tech support I found someplace that suggested I use a different outgoing mail server. I found a paid service (about 30 bucks a year), and you retain your email address but it goes out through their servers. I set it up about 4 days ago and for the first time in about 6 months I have had no email problems. Of course its still early, but this has been a constant problem so 4 trouble free days is a step in the right direction. I used a service called authSMTP but I'm guessing there are others out there. So far no requests to keep entering my password, no failed outgoing mail problems and no returned mail so far. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Grrrr]

Going into the Web version of Yahoo Mail (which I rarely do) has worked for me to get access via Mail.app working again.

 

[JayeDubious]

Confirmation (Problem Solved)

I can confirm after trying everything else... that changing your password to a 8 character maximum works. I have a new Mac Book Retina and was so frustrated with not having my Yahoo mail and iMessenger sync properly.

I tried the passowrd change and--"Wala, MAGIC!"
It worked for me, after days of puzzled and failed attempts.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[hamkor04]

Yahoo is the one email account that seems really unreliable on my MacBook.

Why is this? Anyone else think the same?

Yahoo has updated their "security policy" that down;t allow two device connected at same time.
Iphone + Mac, usually mac fails to update Yahoo emails
restart ur email app(on mac) and mace sure on the iphone ur email is closed

 

[ejsamuel]

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what is going on here. Why the yahoos at Yahoo! can't seem to fix it is well beyond me.

I have a non-trivial number of mail accounts with Yahoo! that are connected to my DSL service, plus another Yahoo! account that apparently has a mail service that I never actually use. Of those various accounts, only the DSL Primary account has password problems. Other than that, it doesn't matter whether I am using POP or IMAP, although I have not had problems using iOS Push. One Mac is running OS-X.IV.XI (Tiger); the other is running OS-X.VI.VIII (Snow Leopard). The OS version doesn't matter; this is Yahoo!'s problem.

The problem is that Yahoo! or AT&T or sbcglobal or whatever they are calling themselves today uses multiple servers to handle their push, POP, and imap services. In other words, when you open a connection to imap.mail.yahoo.com, you are actually asking Yahoo! to connect you to any of several servers that all respond to the same gateway address. I'm not sure exactly how they do this because I am not a network guy, but in about ten minutes of pinging mail servers, I've come up with two different IP addresses and four different host names for the same address:

imap.mail.yahoo.com:
98.138.24.42 - imap413.mail.vip.ne1.yahoo.com
98.138.24.42 - imap.mail.global.g1.b.yahoo.com
98.139.218.251 - imap.mail.global.g1.b.yahoo.com
98.139.218.251 - imap.mail.us.a03.yahoodns.net

So far I have only seen those two IP addresses, but I have seen four different names, and notice that one of the names has shown up on two different IP addresses. So only Yahoo! really knows how many servers are responding to imap.mail.yahoo.com.

What this suggests to me is that the real problem is that one or more of the servers is not properly managing authentication data. That is, one of the machines is probably pointed at a different authentication server (or authentication server cluster; who knows how Yahoo! has that set up!) so that the particular mail server does not properly authenticate against your username and password. This would also explain why resetting your account password sometimes (but not always) fixes the problem. Given that account information may be spread among more than one Yahoo! or AT&T server, it may be that there are multiple sources for authentication, and one or more of the IMAP servers isn't properly authenticating against one or more of the authentication servers. That would explain why the problem doesn't consistently affect multiple accounts being accessed simultaneously. Because it is a server-level authentication problem, it is isolated (for the moment) to IMAP connections, which AT&T and Yahoo! apparently are doing their darnedest not to support anyway. It also explains why one computer can authenticate all day long and the one next to it cannot, even though both are using the same hostname for the mail server.

I thought I had figured out a workaround when I realized that the gateway server (imap.mail.yahoo.com) was resolving to multiple addresses. But I have since seen one of the servers show up on two different IP addresses. I think I'll do some experimenting and see if I can get either consistent success or consistent failure by specifying one of the "real" server names. The problem with doing that is that it isn't a solution by any means, because the first time Yahoo! decides to make a change to the cluster, that server name will change or go away. That's one of the real benefits to the way they are set up: if they need to swap out a server, the other ones keep working and continue responding to queries to the same IP address and host name.

The bottom line is that this is something that Yahoo! has to fix. Nothing we can do as users will fix it for them, and the fundamental design of their email system *insures* that there is nothing we can do to fix the problem.

Rideman - I think you have the conditions right. I have this same issue with one of my in-laws. They have a primary and secondary account for Yahoo. I went to setting up new Mac logins, and then setting up their e-mail accounts again to try and eliminate the problem. The secondary account doesn't get challenged - but the problem traveled to the new screen login with the the Yahoo primary account.

Its taken me several visits to eliminate one thing after another since my in-laws setup looks a lot like mine. Personally, my home system avoids this issue as I never use the primary account for my e-mail. I have set up secondaries for all my users in my home and the keychain problem rarely crops up. I think the solution is to setup secondary accounts to avoid using the primary. I don't know if Yahoo knows how to fix this problem.

I can confirm after trying everything else... that changing your password to a 8 character maximum works. I have a new Mac Book Retina and was so frustrated with not having my Yahoo mail and iMessenger sync properly.

I tried the passowrd change and--"Wala, MAGIC!"
It worked for me, after days of puzzled and failed attempts.

Thanks for the advice!

Interesting - I haven't seen anything on Yahoo forcing a minimum character count for passwords. I have to check this solution out too.

 

[ejsamuel]

Mac 10.6.8 Snow Leopard - problems continue

I tried increasing the password to 9 characters and the problem continues. Sigh. (On the side, I changed my in-laws system to use OpenDNS vice my service providers)

 

[rick.marshall]

Try adding plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com

Hi Everyone,

I've had this problem on & off with OSX Mail set up for POP access. Recently, I set up OSX Mail under Lion on another Mac for IMAP access, and the password challenge thing went insane. Totally couldn't figure it out.

Somewhere in a thread, someone commented about SMTP fails being at the root cause. So, I decided to add in the Yahoo! Mail Plus SMTP, which is different form the standard SMTP.

If you are having the password challenge problem AND you are Plus user (and maybe even if you are not?) try adding in this additional SMTP server: plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com and point your Yahoo account to this server in the Advanced settings.

It's been over 24 hours now, and no password challenge....

Hope this is helpful~

 

[tivoboy]

same issue

I'm having this same issue now. Can't figure out how to fix it. Webmail works fine, so username and password seem to be fine. I can't get authentication working on anything, iphone, ipad or mail of course. Have tried the plus.xyz.etc.etc.etc, but that didn't work.

Might try new password at some point, but that's a bit of a low probability.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I'm having this same issue now. Can't figure out how to fix it."

Did you read my post #6 in this thread?

Are you using port #25, by any chance, for your outgoing mail?

Does your service provider "block" port 25 for sent mail?

If so, you may need to call your ISP and request that it be "UN-blocked".

I had many problems with ATT Uverse until I got that resolved.

 

[tivoboy]

yes

yes, I reviewed this entire posting, but I'm not trying to use 25. At least, not in the mail setup. Is there a way to confirm through terminal or a log, which port it is trying to go OUT on.

but, I can't get mail IN either.

 

[derrydimps]

Magic!

I had to change my yahoo password yesterday due to spamming and since then Mail wouldn't accept my new password, I have tried everything I can think of but still it was being rejected even though it worked fine on-line, I was sitting here reading through all the previous posts and suddenly my emails started coming in !!! Seems it needed a day to recognise the fact I had changed my password......figure that out !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[bennyg67]

Yahoo password/keychain issues

I think I have figured it out. You go in yahoo.com log out and log back in. Then go to your mail and the problem is solved. At least it worked for me!

Good luck!
Benny

hi,
has there been any progress on this problem?
I'm experiencing the same issue since a few days and it is very strange, because on both my Imac and my MacBook the imap yahoo-mail account doesn't work, but on my iphone it works fine.
It started last week when I had to change my password because of a security issue (my account started to send out spam). Also the yahoo-mail website acts differently than i remember when logging in, with having to type in several verification captchas etc. and then it shows that i'm logged in, but still the login-window is showed and not the in-box... i can check my mails however over a few detours, but cannot get into my account-information to rechange my password...
I tried deleting my account on mac mail and setting it up again, but it doesn't even accept the password while setting up the account, even though it is correct and works fine on iphone...

Does anybody else have these issues?

 

[tivoboy]

hmm

Hmm, that would be a pretty easy fix, if it works. I'll try it the next time this fails.

 

[blewvelvet]

This worked!

..for me.

Apparently, you need to now tell yahoo which devices you are using. If there is a duplicate entry here (two types of similar devices) you need to delete both.

Please see here.

http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&id=SLN6273&locale=en_US&y=PROD_MAIL_MOBILE