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Mail still forgets passwords

For a long time in Leopard the Mail app failed to remember the password for my mail accounts. I waited for Lion, expecting the problem to be fixed, but alas, it hasn't been. I've done everything recommended in the forums - deleting keychain and mail prefs, changing the password, setting the keychain Access Control to allow all applications to use the password, switching off mail sync in other devices (iPhone, iPad, etc) and of course updating the whole OS to Lion. Any clues what else I can try before I dump Mail altogether and switch to a new mail client? Thanks

iMac G4, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 30, 2011 4:15 PM

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66 replies

Jul 30, 2011 6:30 PM in response to barney97

There was never any problem with Mail and passwords. Whatever problem plagued your system since Leopard has been unaddressed and migrated into Lion. That is the big problem with "waiting for a fix". In almost all cases, the problem is local to one specific machine and no fix will ever arrive unless the user fixes it.


The standard fix for this is deleting any individual keychain entries for that mail account, checking your main, providing the password, and clicking the "remember" checkbox. That should fix it. If it doesn't, you may have some incompatible 3rd party software. You can try creating a new account on your machine and checking the same mail accounts there.

Aug 9, 2011 5:54 AM in response to etresoft

Ok, I've tried Thunderbolt and Postbox as alternatives and while I prefer the interface of Mail, those programs didn't constantly ask for my password like Mail has done for the past couple of years. As a lot of people seem to have this issue, and none of the published fixes appear to work, it looks like I'm destined to be another frustrated Mail user until something more stable comes along.

Aug 9, 2011 6:03 AM in response to barney97

One common problem that causes this is a failure to connect to the server. I'm no expert here, but apparently a timed-out connection can sometimes mimic what happens when the password is bad. I've seen this problem myself, but only very rarely, and only when the server is having some transient problems.


How Mail chooses to handle this situation is evidently different from how Thunderbird handles it, but which is "correct" is a matter of debate. The bottom line, though, is that if etresoft's suggestions don't help, it's likely to be a problem with your mail server or your internet connection.

Sep 28, 2011 5:00 PM in response to barney97

Every time I have had this happen to me, the passwords were not really lost. It was because for some unexplained reason, Mail could not connect to something. I say "something" because I tested a few times, and it could connect to the mail server.

The only thing to do was to ignore the prompts to re-enter the passwords, and try again later.

Nov 14, 2011 8:55 AM in response to mauijiminar

I have the same problem in Lion and this is a new machine with pre-installed Lion. Deleting and reestablishing email accounts (or even tediously clicking "cancel") is not an option because I have 44 email accounts. Too much work! This is clearly a bug in the OS.


RARELY happened in 10.4 for one or two accounts, but in Lion, it happens for ALL accounts at the same time! Yikes! I can't even quit or do anything else on the Mac because all these password-request dialog boxes keep popping up in the foreground and demanding attention—this is a very bad thing in itself—so I just FORCE QUIT Mail and relaunch. Problem goes away...until we meet again. (Seems to only happen when I'm not using Mail and it's hidden. Not sure.)


Anyway, Apple is preparing to release another 10.7 update.

Nov 24, 2011 8:39 AM in response to barney97

Hi all,

I just have to say I have exact same problem tried everything. Few new observations to add here.

I am currently using OSX Lion 10.7.2 - I had the exact same problem with Snow Leopard.

1. I have tried using MS Outlook (from Office 2011) - same happen.

2. A funny thing was however that in the first month or so after upgrading to Lion the problem was not present !?!, but came back (full blown, and just got worse -> Happens more frequently than ever, which is sveeral time a day)

3. I have the exact same mail accounts on my iPad's and iPhone's -> works like a charm

4. Here comes another funny thing. I only have the problem with my 4 mail accounts at Yahoo connecting with IMAP4. the 5th which is a gmail account does NEVER prompt for password. Just works.


I never had these problems on a PC running Windows 7 so something is for sure not working right in OSX/mail


Will have to check if Thunderbird is better

Nov 24, 2011 8:55 AM in response to thomas_r.

I had a similar problem in Lion 7.2 (Mail asking for a password now and again for no apparent reason which resulted in me just pressing "Continue") until about four weeks ago, but nothing since. The only thing that I have done is to uninstall a couple of utilities that modify the OS: Unsanity's (effectively defunct) Windowshade haxie and CleanMyMac, on advice that such modifiers can de-stable the Mac (and Lion does not need any help with that!). Perhaps that has done the trick. (Perhaps.)

Dec 5, 2011 10:57 AM in response to barney97

@LaraCroft_NYC Thats really strange! Hope it becomes clear why..... I decided to install Thunderbird Friday last week. Now I have had almost 4 days without any problems, thats just great!!. I dont know the technicalities of how Thunderbird does it different than Mail or Outlook, but it works!


Though Thunderbird is an ok mail program I would still prefer to use Mail. But as long as the problems are not fixed ... NO way!

Dec 31, 2011 10:56 PM in response to barney97

hi guys !


just my 2 cents worth :


for whatever reason i seem to suffer from the exact same thing - however in my case in Snow Leopard this NEVER happened, soon after i upgraded to Lion, even though i have the same softwares installed & use my iMac in pretty much the same way, it happens quite often & worse :

it can go for 2, 4 or even 7 days WITHOUT happening ONCE & all of a sudden for no apparent reason it happens 5 or 8 ( more ?.. ) times in a row which drives me nuts....


funnily enough, one very distinct thing i AM doing different since i upgraded to Lion is that i started using KeychainAccess actually to AVOID this sort of thing & NOT rely on having a single password for EVERYTHING..

so in an effort to sort it i :


1 - Googled up common problems with Keychain Access, did a troubleshoot/repair, it told me NOTHING was wrong..

2 - deleted all the passwords from Keychain, ran a full Onyx ''maintenance routine'' ( permissions repair, etc, etc.. ) restarted the iMac &....just when i thought i had nailed it....BOOM !!... there comes the pesky little dialog box asking, no ! actually DEMANDING the password a couple of times in a row !?


any suggestions other than what has been written above ? i DO like Mail's way of doing things & would REALLY prefer to keep it/sort it rather than install another program


oh well, i guess one couldn't start a new year without some ''fun'' thing + a bit of mystery going, huh ? ;-)


cheers

Feb 14, 2012 1:43 PM in response to thomas_r.

Not really. As was already said on this topic almost six months ago, the cause is almost certain to be difficulty communicating with the mail server.


I have four accounts with one mail provider; no syncing, no MobileMe. The accounts have all behaved for at least a year with no requests for passwords. In the past couple of weeks two of them constantly have their password forgotten; the other two never do. I don't see how this can be a problem with the server - if it were I'd expect all the accounts to have the problem at some point. I stopped using Mac for a couple of days and went over to Outlook; no server problems, no connection problems in the log, no password requests. In my case this is a Mac Mail problem, not a server problem and, given that I always tick the "remember in keychain" together with the completely random keychain operation of it remembering (or not) web accounts and passwords I suspect it is a Keychain problem.

Mail still forgets passwords

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