Hotmail constantly asking for password

Question

Level 1

15 points

Hotmail constantly asking for password

Hi guys

This has been going on for about 3 months now.

My Hotmail (Live) account in Mail is constantly re-asking for the login password, although it has been typed dozens of times and "checked" to be remembered in the keychain.

I could not establish a pattern for this behavior since it happens pretty randomly. I mean it doesn't always happen when I start Mail.app, nor when I wake up the computer from sleep and reconnects to my wifi.

My other two different accounts are fine and never created any problems.

Is this a Keychain problem or a Hotmail problem ?

I also thought of changing the password but it's not that old and it has been created with 1Password, so it's a strong password. Could this be a sign of someone trying to hack into my Hotmail account ?

15" MBP Unibody 2.4G, 7200rpm/250G; 15" MBP Unibody 2.8G, 7200/500G; iTouch 2nd, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jul 20, 2010 9:04 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 20, 2010 9:10 AM in response to Zeniamin

Sounds like your hotmail account account is timing out, as in too many attempts to login. Have you launched keychain? and performed the show password to make sure it is correct? To the best of my knowledge hotmail is POP3 protocol and not IMAP. There could lie the reason for the timing out of to often checking the account with no activity from the postoffice (hotmail). In effect it's turn you POP account off.

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Answer 2

Jul 20, 2010 9:15 AM in response to Zeniamin

I think it is some sort of Hotmail issue. I have the same problem with Mail in 10.4.11 as in Snow Leopard and Mail 4.3. Since I have an account mainly used for testing, I often deselect to include the Hotmail account when automatically checking for new messages, and never once have I had a Password prompt when manually getting new mail. Not what one would want, but perhaps a clue.

Ernie

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Answer 3

Zeniamin Author

Level 1

15 points

Jul 20, 2010 10:15 AM in response to jpasquale_

Yahoo is a POP3 account and does not do this.

What do you mean by turning the POP off ?

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Answer 4

Jul 20, 2010 11:23 AM in response to Zeniamin

POP3 protocol has a register set value within the postoffice that rejects requests until a watchdog timer expires, at which point the register set a null value and will allow login attempts. As an earlier protocol of IP on port 110 it does have a robust set of advanced features like IMAP.

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Answer 5

Jul 20, 2010 11:26 AM in response to Zeniamin

here is a link that should help you understand how POP3 works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostOfficeProtocol

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Answer 6

Salnews

Level 1

1 points

Jul 20, 2010 11:58 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

I am having this same issue with my Hotmail account on my iMac, using Mail, running Snow Leopard and on the iMac I use at work with an Earthlink email account using Mail in Leopard. Although it does seem that the Hotmail account on the Snow Leopard machine gives the rejected password message more often.

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Answer 7

Jul 20, 2010 1:28 PM in response to Salnews

I re-enabled to auto-check for new mail with my Hotmail account, and for the last several hours has been hanging in there.

Ernie

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Answer 8

Zeniamin Author

Level 1

15 points

Jul 21, 2010 3:46 AM in response to jpasquale_

Thank you for all the information. I wasn't looking for another hour of reading new information about things that are not part of my daily reading. Are you saying this behavior is normal ?

My question was simple and I was expecting a simple answer...something like "yes, it's a Hotmail problem and it's being taken care of" or "this is likely to be fixed with the next Apple update"...

I've had the Hotmail account active in Apple Mail for quite a while, and I haven't had these problems before. So it's easy to assume it's either from Hotmail or from Apple's Mail.

Which one is it ? And is there a workaround or a fix ?

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Answer 9

Jul 21, 2010 3:49 AM in response to Zeniamin

Reread the first sentence of my first post.

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Answer 10

Zeniamin Author

Level 1

15 points

Jul 21, 2010 3:52 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

How do you do that ?

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Answer 11

Jul 21, 2010 4:04 AM in response to Zeniamin

Not sure what you just asked? My first sentence of my first post was "I think it is some sort of Hotmail issue." I was being flippant about your complaint of too much info. I do not know of a workaround -- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Ernie

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Answer 12

Zeniamin Author

Level 1

15 points

Jul 22, 2010 4:00 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Awesome !

I'll just wait for 10.7.

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Answer 13

holtzal

Level 1

0 points

Jul 30, 2010 4:20 PM in response to jpasquale_

I've been seeing this password request on my MSN account sometimes every few minutes and sometimes not for hours. I'm using the mail program within Snow Leopard so the MSN mail is set up as a POP3 account. My other accounts, Gmail and Yahoo, are Internet based and only ask for password reentry every two weeks or so when that times out. Are there settings one can change to prevent this MSN timing out randomly. It's really difficult to tell whether this is a Microsoft or an Apple issue.

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Answer 14

revDAVE

Level 2

344 points

Aug 23, 2010 12:19 PM in response to holtzal

I also am having this hotmail issue - and think it's interesting - I'm going to try NOT retyping the pass and ignore and see if things are fine the next time - that would lead me to believe - as mentioned in this thread - that it's not an apple issue but maybe a hotmail 'asking too many times' issue.

Then I may do as one other mentioned and just take the address out of auto check and do it manually.........

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Answer 15

Sep 7, 2010 2:24 PM in response to revDAVE

I have been having the same issue for the past few months on two macs; apple support has been great trying to help but nothing works so far. Re-installed keychain, mail plist, opened up guest accounts, access hotmail under Thunderbird (no issue) - I suppose that some combination of updates of Mac OS, Mail and Hotmail will resolve the issue.

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