Password rejected on apple mail constantly

I've called apple and at&t daily for hours to see if there is a solution. my password is constantly rejected. I put it back in and it's rejected a few minutes later again. Mail won't work until I put it in again. I use an airport extreme N connection to my dsl. Mail works on at&t's web site without a problem. I've reset my password. At&T says its a problem with apple mail, apple says its a at&t problem. My neighbor has exactly the same problem and gets the same circle. I've come to believe that maybe it is a amail problem. Anyone else have the same problem or a fix or should I just wait for a lepard fix, I hope. It even freezes my iphone wireless retrieval during the time I have to retype my password in the box.

Dual 2GHZ PowerPC G5, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 30, 2007 1:34 PM

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26 replies

Jul 30, 2007 1:49 PM in response to ncrump

This has been happening to me for two weeks now (coincidentally around the same time I got an iPhone). Here is what I have tried: disable mail account on iPhone while at work, repair permissions on my Mac, repair keychain, remove pop account and try a new pop account with the same email alias... None have worked. I check around 7 pop accounts in mail and it only happens with one- unfortunately it is my main account for work.

Jul 30, 2007 6:46 PM in response to ncrump

As great as is UNIX/OS X, it IS complicated technology, which is not always seamlessly operating. Also, the service providers make upgrades in their systems, too, and frequently are "cutting edge." Your system may work quite properly, or quickly enough. If you have carefully set up your settings and double checked them, then probably it is not your fault, but who really knows!!!! Spontaneous regeneration is alive and well!

One trick which sometimes works is to shut everything down, let it sit for a few minutes, and then restart everything up in the proper order.

Jul 30, 2007 8:06 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Mail checks every 5 minutes. For me, it started happening the day after I got my iPhone. I thought that there was a conflict of sorts between the iPhone and my iMac's Mail so like I posted above, I shut off the account on the iPhone while at work, but it didn't help.

Perhaps it is not the iPhone but one of the software updates I had to do in order to activate the iPhone?

Aug 1, 2007 5:58 AM in response to Brian Flanigan

You may be right. My iphone will receive the email, I think do to at&t's push technology but my computer still ask for a password constantly. It may have happened when I got my iphone or when I updated my system to 10.4.10. Not sure since they happened almost simultaneously. I don't care where the problem is but it needs to be fixed. Even the genuis at the apple store I visited said he was having a similar problem.

Aug 2, 2007 5:47 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

My neighbor call the corporate office and discussed the problem with them. Evidently this is an "expected occurence" that will have to be addressed. It seems that people who use apple mail and the iphone, a conflict occurs when both try to contact the at&t server at almost the same time. I would suspect this is happening to millions now since all iphones work with at&t.

Aug 2, 2007 6:48 AM in response to ncrump

I was having the same problem with my password being rejected. I resolved it by giving my iPhone its own email address then forwarding my normal email address to that address.

I am using ATX for our work email and wanted to get that email on my iPhone. ATX has a web console that allows me to add or delete email addresses for our company.

Is is possible to get another email address for your phone?

Message was edited by: tjm2325

Aug 2, 2007 11:41 AM in response to sguerra

This has been a long term issue for me - though for me it only occurs occasionally. I have learned to always click cancel (and not bother re-entering the password). Usually, for me, the next time it tries it works. Sometimes (presumably if the mail server is having problems) it happens repeatedly, and then eventually it resolves itself.

This happens on my Mac, my wife's Mac, and a few days ago my sister bought her first Mac (different address, different ISP) and she has just reported having this problem too. I've had nothing to do with my sister setting up her Mac, so it can't be anything I've done!

Aug 8, 2007 5:31 PM in response to ncrump

I have been having a similar problem on our two Macs (iMac & MacBook) for a couple of weeks. I have at&t Yahoo! DSL and the password rejection problem really seemed to start with regularity when at&t changed their setting to require use of SSL on the specified ports. I have tried lots of things including repairing my Keychain, deleting and re-building my Mail account, and repairing permissions but I may have just stumbled onto a fix.

I think there may be a conflict between Mail's password authentication with the SSL and Keychain. I deleted all Keychains that had anything to do with at&t (POP, SMTP etc) and although it hasn't been very long, the tests I have done indicate the non-remembered password problem may be fixed. In the past when I tried deleting the keychains, I would always choose to have Keychain remember the password if the box would pop up. I think this may have been perpetuating the issue if indeed it is a conflict with Keychain. Don't know if it's a long term fix, but looks promising so far. If anyone else tries this and it works please let us know.

Thanks,
JMcK

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Password rejected on apple mail constantly

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