Pop Sever Rejected my Password

It happens every month or so but lately every week, and more lately once a day.... - a flurry of requests for passwords. Then everything settles down. It's frustrating.

I've had this problem on and off for over 2 years. It annoys the heck out of me for a while then it goes away for a few months and just when I forget about it, it pops up again for a few days. Only happens to my comcast account. I am sure that Comcast doesn't know this is going on, their tickets are closed without them ever doing anything to really check this, all they check is their mail server, and it is only related to the mail server..... it is more a traffic problem to their server..

although today, i logged on to their website, and got the login failure when checking the mail, and then tried again, and error was gone....

it is extremely intermittent, and you must keep on them, tell them to call you... (they never will) but if by chance, someone knows what they are doing and actually calls, we might get an answer from one of you, and hopefully you'll write out something here that will help us all...

keep on them.

I have been having this problem for a few months. I have taken my laptop to the Apple Genius Bar twice. He deleted the Keychains, installed Leopard and did a tune up. The genius bar guy said that comcast was suppose to fix the bug...but I don't know if they are the problem. I do have comcast, but they say it is not a problem with them. I have another appointment next week to deal with the issue again....it is driving me crazy!!!

Good to hear I am not alone. I have comcast. I seem to be ok 95% of the time but then the popups will start and continue for a while. I chatted with comcast (waste of time) but they did talk about using port 465 for outgoing smtp with SSL and 995 for incoming with SSL. I don't have a lot of confidence in the tech and he could not tell me how to set the outgoing port. Their instructions show an options button below the smtp server. I don't have that button on 10.5.5. I do find it interesting that I have 2 accounts and that my email user name for the account is appended with a colon after the smtp server name. I wonder if anyone sees the same and has tried removing it or maybe this is where you might define a different port for out going mail ?

I too have been having the problem on all three of my systems (10.5.5) that have four accounts on each machine. All with Comcast. I'll continue to monitor this discussion and bug Comcast to get this resolved.

As I've said earlier, I'm with Bell in Canada and have the identical issues that you guys are citing. Bell proved to me it wasn't them - its Apple

Can you show us how you determined it's a mac problem? Packet dumps would help. The Apple software seems to be awfully compliant with pop3 and imap standards. Comcast says it's not a problem because their mail server that DOESN'T use pop3 and imap works ok. We know that's meaningless. But you seem awfully certain. So please share the details with us.

No discussion this IS AN APPLE problem. We use only macs machines in-house and we're using the postfix mailserver on a machine running Tiger.

Now with Apple Mail I have not been able to down load mail from our mail server since the exact date 15th of August 2008. However, there is no indication of postfix being dysfunctional as other mail clients easily access the mail on the server.

We have tried everything from re-installation to minor configuration changes. We have tested if the problem could be reproduced using Windows and Linux machines and it could not (everything works fine).

Our testing isolates the problem to Apple Mail...

Now Apple this is not acceptable!! Fix the problem right away....

This is a keychain problem. I deleted all the keychains to the pop mail accounts and then retyped them in mail app. Worked for me.

I've done that and repaired keychains and it didn't work at for me. This problem continually comes and goes!

I am with BT in the UK ... no connection with Comcast ... using OS 10.5.5 and since a recent software download I have had this problem with the password pop up rejecting my legitimate password, which means that some of my mail does not get through and for the past four days I have found it difficult/impossible to send mail. The service is so unreliable I am taking my mail elsewhere. The port settings seem to be being altered by remote ... this is a bug which needs fixing ... and has just been allowed to run and run ... certainly I never experienced any problems like this with Hotmail ...

I am on the Aliant network in Canada - and I too share the frustration of which many have written. Is this being looked at, fixed, or otherwise addressed by Apple?

I'm tired of my ISP pointing me to Apple, and Apple pointing me right back at them. I just want my Mail to work with such a hassle. This Macbook cost too much - with such promise of "trouble-free" experiences, that I don't really want to slam it into the ground. 😉

here is something that might help, actually 2 things, I deleted the mail account, and re-input it from scratch. also, deleting everything that has to do with the mail.app, and the app itself, then reinstall from disk, (must find all files associated with mail.app to delete) then inputing just one email from comcast from scratch...

my flurry of requests for password calmed down to just one over the past 4 days.... (probably just a coincidence, it is so intermittent or maybe even comcast took my last ticket seriously, who knows)

use the automatic process of setting up an email for pop, and don't change anything... don't add rules, keep your account clean, and your mail app clean... don't add any rules, sigs, nothing.

see if that helps? (you must back up any mail that you want to keep, put it in a different folder)... test... retest... keep testing, we must find this problem. Apple and Comcast are not going to help. they don't have employees with Comcast accounts.... you'd think they would get employees that can test these types of things, but that would make too much sense i guess.

Jon.

also don't use "spaces" or user switching for testing...

i'm not using it for a week or so, to see if this causes any problems with the mail.app...

Jon.

If it's really an insurmountable problem for you, at least there's a work around. You can use a different mail client. Thunderbird is great

My ISP is Bell Sympatico. I started to have mail problems as described just after I installed the last Leopard Security up-date. I had a long session with Sympatico tech support and they proved to me it was an Apple problem, not the ISP's. How? I gave them my password and login info and they logged in to my account multiple times, verified my settings, and said see Apple. After 2 trips to the Genius Bar ripping out preferences and keychains my Mail stopped working completely. The problem seems to be a new level of security in the up-grade which won't work with your ISP's older password security causing password rejection. The only thing the Genius suggested I do was to Archive and Install. Oh, plus an apology. Lucky I'm a weekly back-up maniac. I picked the back-up date just before the Security up-date, saved my current files and folders and did a Retrospect disk restore. Result? All works perfectly. Lesson learned?(after having gone through the same nonsense weeks ago with a Tiger Security up-date) I will never never install another Apple up-grade until I'm sure there are no horror stories in the pipeline. I'm a long time Apple user (Apple II+) and I am seriously angry at the lack of support these recent issues have been given. Hiding under the bed stops working when you turn 10. Act your age Apple.
PO'd in the Great White North