Mail still forgets passwords

Hi again,

It's been a while since I posted on this topic.

Status as of today - NO CHANGES. Mail in OSX (yes also in 10.7.3) continues to forget passwords as allways. ANY of my earlier reportings are STILL VALID.

I have now used Thunderbird for 3 months WITHOUT this problem. SO anyone who thinks there isnt a problem with Mail in OSX please explain WHY and give the solution!!

@Thomas A Reed - how can you claim that there is not an issue without any concrete explanation and solutions. What you state is just a general thing that I agree would have been obvious if it wasnt for the reports from me and others in this thread with concrete described problems.

1. All my accounts works without problems with Thunderbird in OSX

2. All my accounts works without problems in Mail on IPads and Iphones

3. All my accounts works without problems on Windows PCs

I stil hope someone (APPLE) can tell why on earth it does not work stable with Mail in OSX.

By the way I love the OSX and Mail - just not with this problem.

THX

If you're on BT Yahoo mail try the stuff in my earlier post regarding loging in/out/in of webmail. Also change your password - no upper case letters, no funny characters and if possible no numbers. These have not completely fixed the problem for me but it has made it significantly better. I used to get the problem almost every time Mail polled the client. Now I get it about once a day.

Before you try this you coud disable any other devices which are accessing mail (iPhone, iPad, other mobile devices and any cloud services) to see if this improves it. If Mac mail tries to access mail while another client is pulling mail then it will give the password rejected message. It'll help give you a clue as to whether it's a local or server problem.

Note that I'm not doubting your view that it's a Mac mail problem - just telling you what has made the situation much better for me. I thought that Outlook was not having this problem but when I looked at the logs I saw that it was being bounced too - it just doesn't make as much fuss about it as Mac Mail does.

Sorry if none of this relates to your situation and good luck!

I do not know if it is a Mac problem, but forgetting my passwords in Mail has become common. I am not a computer tech, but it I notice it occurs mostly when I move the physical computer from one wifi network to another. At home it may work fine but if I go to the office or a hotel, you can guarantee it will ask for the passwords. Did not happen a year ago.

@TheHappyDaneBecause fanboys never admit there is a REAL problem with anything made by Apple. Its pathetic. Since switching 3 weeks ago I feel like all I've been doing is getting around OS or software troubles. Never had to do this on Win 7.

I wasn't even familiar with the term WORKAROUND until I switched to Mac, and now everything needs a workaround, all forums everywhere are full of the word workaround. Sad really. A criminal case of false advertising from Apple.

My iCloud account in Mail keeps asking for password now and then, sometimes when the router is messed up and needs rebooting. But gmail accounts never forget passwords. My diagnosis is its a Mail problem or iCloud server problem or something. It is DEFINITELY an APPLE problem, and needs to be fixed by them, NOT US.

Keep in mind, even if deleting prefs and resetting Keychain solved the problem, it would still be an OS X problem. So fanboys are just being stupid fanboys by outright declaring its not an OS X problem.

For several years I have experienced those random periods when one of my 5 ISP provided accounts will have a password problem, and not the others. Then a few hours later all would be well. So I cannot agree that one would expect all or none.

Ernie

My iCloud account in Mail keeps asking for password now and then, sometimes when the router is messed up and needs rebooting.

Hmm, yes, but it must be Apple's problem. The known network issue causing your router to need rebooting couldn't have anything to do with it. 😉

Thomas A Reed wrote:

My iCloud account in Mail keeps asking for password now and then, sometimes when the router is messed up and needs rebooting.

Hmm, yes, but it must be Apple's problem. The known network issue causing your router to need rebooting couldn't have anything to do with it. 😉

Then how come it only happens with one email account? Its always the iCloud account, which works perfectly on my iPod Touch. Just in last 1 hour Mail asked for the pasword twice! Even though my router is working fine.

Yes it does happen because of network/wifi problems BUT only for 1 mail account out of 4. So yes, it is STILL an Apple problem. Simple logic.

Hi Sam. I too thought the same as you (see my earlier post). I used to get a demand for two of my numerous accounts every time they polled. My ISP fixed it and now it's stopped.

4940863492 wrote:

Hi Sam. I too thought the same as you (see my earlier post). I used to get a demand for two of my numerous accounts every time they polled. My ISP fixed it and now it's stopped.

How did your ISP fix it and what did they do exactly? It still doesn't explain why my iCloud account is forgetting password but Gmail accounts never do. I don't see ISP having anything to do with it, unless iCloud servers don't like my ISP.

Regarding your earlier post about changing password. It could be that your new password entry in Keychain solved the problem. Plus, using only lower case and such should make no difference whatsoever. iCloud actually requires you to use Capitals AND numbers.

Thunderbird does it right by not pestering user to enter the password. Mail is obviously getting a 'wrong password' feedback from server. Or simply its a flaw in code that invokes this whenever Mail can't access the account. And its actually a very bad problem if even network problems can invoke this action. My past experience in software programming says this is a bug in Mail.

Sam. See my earlier posts. My ISP is BT (I'm in the UK). I logged into webmail - upgraded to some new webmail service (I never use webmail) and changed my passwords (using webmail) ensuring they had no capital letters. I'm not a techie, but I can see no good reason why any of this should have made any difference and when the BT guy phoned me and told me to do it I assumed he was a snake oil salesman - especially since I'd already tried changing passwords, deleting and re-creating accounts etc all to no avail. It worked and has been OK for a few weeks so far.

I'm not making any representation as to whether this is a Mac problem or not. Maybe Macs are more sensitive to errors, tolerances, etc. Maybe they've written too carefully to the spec (that's the excuse they use for the USB ports disabling themselves - the "we're OK, it's the rest of them" response). I wish you luck with this - I know how annoying that bouncy little icon is and the continual requests for passwords drove me up the wall.

Thanks, glad that you understand my frustration with Mac/Apple/OSX. In last 3 weeks I've had to tackle so many of such stupid OS X related hurdles that I'm getting pretty upset about switching. Compared to Win7, Lion seems to be very "UNrobust", and thats a shocker no doubt.

SL was much better.

Without a doubt it is an Apple problem. I am still using OS 10.6.8 and have not moved to Lion because a program I run using Windows 7 under Parallel is not yet certified under Lion. I never had mail password problems when I ran a Windows based machine. Did not have any problems with Apple until a few months ago. Come to think about it, it was after Lion had been released. Not ready to go back to Windows, but would like a simple, permanent answer to the password issue.

Could always be a corrupted Keychain. You guys can always try verifing your Keychain to see if it needs to be repaired. Keychain Access is the application storing your mail (and more) passwords.

Open Keychain Access > Click the name next to the apple, and try running 'Keychain first aid'

H. I. wrote:

Without a doubt it is an Apple problem. I am still using OS 10.6.8 and have not moved to Lion because a program I run using Windows 7 under Parallel is not yet certified under Lion. I never had mail password problems when I ran a Windows based machine. Did not have any problems with Apple until a few months ago. Come to think about it, it was after Lion had been released. Not ready to go back to Windows, but would like a simple, permanent answer to the password issue.

I don't see the password problem very often and then only in Hotmail or Gmail and I run Lion. But you say you see this problem and you run Snow Leopard? I don't see how you can claim it is Lion if you don't run Lion. I used to get it just as much with Snow Leopard. Usually disappears after a reboot and I don't see it again for weeks.

Good Luck

Pete

Pete,

Thanks for the reply. I am NOT running Lion yet.(Wife has Lion on her Mac Airbook) I am still on OS10.6.8. Checked the keychain this morning and it said no errors found.

Regards,

Cap