yahoo mail - authentication failed?

It may not be considered as proof but a strong indication this is a Yahoo problem is that everyone reporting a problem accessing their Yahoo account are not having a problem accessing any other email account with the iPhone's mail client - if they are also accessing another non-Yahoo email account with the iPhone's mail client. If a problem with the iPhone or with the iPhone's mail client, more than likely there would be a problem accessing a non-Yahoo account also.

Are you accessing a Yahoo account only with the iPhone's mail client? If not, are you having any problems accessing another email account with the iPhone's mail client?

Allan Sampson wrote:
are you having any problems accessing another email account with the iPhone's mail client?

I was reading on some other posts that some people are also having issues with other accounts as well - but those weren't as frequent as with the Yahoo issues. There were a few reports about AOL and G-mail as well - but those could be related to something different. It's obviously just affecting mostly Yahoo users but we haven't heard anything from anyone about it. When I called Apple yesterday they didn't know anything about it & I'm still waiting to hear back from Yahoo as are many other users on here.

Thanks - I was being flippant.

It does sound like a Yahoo problem as my Gmail is working fine, and (although its not really relevant) I can access my Yahoo via the browser fine.

I immedediately thought it was a breach of the account due to the 'password' error, however I changed this and it was still here.

Given the other reports on this thread it sounds like a gateway or server problem at Yahoo.

No problem.

As you apparently know, the ability to access an email account via webmail using a browser is not relevant since connecting to an incoming mail server is not required with webmail access as is required when accessing the account with an email client.

When creating a Yahoo account with the iPhone's mail client, the account is created as an IMAP account with Push access. Yahoo doesn't support accessing a Yahoo account as an IMAP account with any other email client at the present time. You can access a Yahoo account as a POP account only with an email client on your computer. I believe this is related since I read a post by someone who is having the same problem with their Yahoo account being able to access the account as a POP account with the iPhone's mail client with no problem. This requires selecting "Other" when creating the account instead of using the Yahoo account preset, followed by selecting POP as the account type when prompted.

Since being able to access a Yahoo account as an IMAP account with Push access is supported by Yahoo with the iPhone's mail client only which is a relatively new protocol for Yahoo, they have had some on and off again problems with it - namely with Push access based on posts here over the last two years or so since the first generation iPhone was released.

I access a MobileMe account and a business POP account with the iPhone's mail client and I haven't experienced any problems with either account.

Hopefully Yahoo will get this resolved soon. As I stated to someone else in another thread, for the most part you get what you pay for, and many are accessing a free Yahoo account. All email account providers for paid or free accounts experience problems from time to time - most are minor and affect only a relatively small percentage of users, but sometimes major problem which this one appears to be.

I was reading on some other posts that some people are also having issues with other accounts as well - but those weren't as frequent as with the Yahoo issues.

Within the last 24 hours or around the same time as the Yahoo problem began or since which seems to be mostly a problem in Europe at the present time?

If not, every email account provider experiences problems from time to time - most are minor and only affect a small percentage of users network wide or in a specific geographic area only which are usually quickly corrected within a relatively short period of time, but all providers have occasional problems.

Allan Sampson wrote:

I was reading on some other posts that some people are also having issues with other accounts as well - but those weren't as frequent as with the Yahoo issues.

Within the last 24 hours or around the same time as the Yahoo problem began or since which seems to be mostly a problem in Europe at the present time?

If not, every email account provider experiences problems from time to time - most are minor and only affect a small percentage of users network wide or in a specific geographic area only which are usually quickly corrected within a relatively short period of time, but all providers have occasional problems.

Thanks for the note. The posts were in the last 24 hrs but not here - on other mac support sites. I'm sure they'll sort it out eventually. Thanks for all the suggestions & help.

A little investigation reveals that imap.apple.mail.yahoo.com is definitely a Yahoo! server and not an Apple server, so any issues affecting other mail accounts are purely coincidental (all my other accounts are fine by the way).

Having said that, I would be surprised if Apple aren't pushing Yahoo! to resolve this anyway, and I'm also surprised tt neither has graced us with an announcement about this outage.

I wouldn't count on Apple making any announcement about this. Apple doesn't do so when Gmail or AOL is having a problem which are also included as account presets on the iPhone. Apple does report MobileMe network problems via webmail access with a MobileMe account. I'm surprised that Yahoo doesn't do the same for Yahoo accounts.

As am I. In fact, when I contacted Yahoo! support via their web chat, the agent didn't even know there was a problem, so they've obviously not even made an internal announcement to their support staff.

dawnrdawnrogers1 wrote:
Hi everyone, I spoke to O2 here in the UK and apparently the yahoo pop3 servers are down 😟 pop 3 servers are what makes it spossible to get your yahoo mail on the iphone (so the o2 guy said) they are hoping to have them back up by this evening.... 🙂 so fingers crossed they get this sorted out in the mean time you can log into yahoo mail through safari on the iphone.

That's great info!! Thanks very much for the update! Cheers 🙂

When using the Yahoo account preset when creating a Yahoo account with the iPhone's Mail client, the account is created and accessed as an IMAP account with Push access.

The O2 person you spoke to doesn't know what he's talking about. The yahoo POP mail servers are working fine right at this moment. Additionally, as others have remarked, the iPhone uses the IMAP, not POP, protocol to access your yahoo mailbox.
The problem is with yahoo's IMAP service.

FWIW, I experienced a similar problem with yahoo mail on my iPhone on Sunday May 24 for a few hours, but it was resolved by Sunday evening...

Mine is working again! Hurrah!

Zach Rathore wrote:
Mine is working again! Hurrah!

Mine as well!!! YAY!!! Thanks everyone for all the help!! 🙂