Mail clients will not send password

Question

Mail clients will not send password

I posted a question in the eMac discussion group, but realize now that I should have posted it here. So I hope I shall be forgiven for posting it again here.

I have three different mail clients: Apple Mail, SeaMonkey, MS Entourage. I recently had some trouble unconnected with mail that necessitated my switching my computer off by its power switch. Thereafter none of the three mail clients would download mail, all saying that sending my password did not succeed.

The password itself is correct. The e-mail system of my ISP (www.btinternet.com) is web-based, and I have no problem displaying my incoming mail in any of my browsers (Safari, SeaMonkey, Firefox), so this shows that my password is accepted by my ISP.

I therefore did the following: I ran DiskWarrior to rebuild the hard disk directory; I used Onyx to check the S.M.A.R.T. status, to correct permissions and to reset the LaunchServices database; I reset the PRAM.

None of these actions solved the problem. Finally I reset the Open Firmware. Hey presto, this worked.

By an unlucky chance, a few days later there was a brief power cut in my part of town, and once again none of my mail clients would send my password and download mail. So I went through all the above procedures again, with the addition that I used Onyx to verify my startup volume before going on to permissions and the LaunchServices database.

This time nothing, not even resetting Open Firmware, has restored my mail clients' downloading capacities.

What can I do now? I should be immensely grateful for any advice.

eMac (USB 2.0), Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Feb 24, 2012 6:38 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 24, 2012 7:05 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Total mystery! My mail clients have suddenly started doing their stuff even though I have done nothing further to my computer other than looking a few things up on the internet. This cannot be due to my ISP previously not accepting my password and suddenly accepting it again, because, as I said in my original post, I have been able to read my mail in my browsers all along, and that presupposes acceptance of my password. It seems too improbable that this phenomenon was caused by an intermittent hardware fault.

I should still be very grateful for any advice in case the problem recurrs.

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Answer 2

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Feb 24, 2012 7:30 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Just because any email client doesn't accept your password from time to time doesn't mean therre's a problem with your system. It is inevitably a temporary problem connecting to the email provider's mail server. This happens to everyone occasionaly, and there's nothing you can do about it, other than to try againa few minutes later or call your service provider and ask them to investigate.

However, when you cut the power to your system without shutting down properly (your first scenario), then you can corrupt files on your Mac and cause the firmware to be in a state it shouldn't be, which can definitely cause problems.

So, don't cut the power to your system unless there's no other way to shut down your Mac.

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Answer 3

Feb 24, 2012 7:40 AM in response to kurt188

Kurt188, thank you for this, but as I tried to explain, my ISP was accepting my password all along (otherwise I would not have been able to read my web-based mail in my browser). It was not a case of my mail cliient(s) not accepting my password; my mail clients were not sending my password to my ISP, whereas my browser allowed me to read my mail online (and that is controlled by the same password).

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Answer 4

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Feb 24, 2012 8:01 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Yes, I know that, but you've misunderstood what I said. Your mail client connecting to the mail server of your ISP is a completely different process than logging into your account on the web. So when your ISP fails to accept the password from your mail client, it almost always means that there's a temporary problem with their mail servers allowing connections.

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Answer 5

Feb 24, 2012 9:57 AM in response to kurt188

Yes, I understand (and understood) that, too, Kurt188. But when I referred to being able to read my mail in my browser, I was not referring to logging in manually (by typing my password). When I open my web-mail in my browser, my password is recognized by my ISP automatically. This must be achieved by software in my computer; otherwise anyone who knows my e-mail address would be able to read my mail without using a password just by going to btinternet.com. Thus my password must be stored in my computer and automatically sent to btinternet every time I go to my mail page on btinternet. That, surely, is a similar process to my mail client sending my password to btinternet.

Admittedly, the password that my mail client sends is stored somewhere associated with that mail client, because when I set up my account in the mail client I had to type my password into the account-setting page (and I had to do the same with each of my backup mail clients). To that extent it is a different process. But the point is that both the web-mail (browser) process and the mail-client process originate in my computer, and both terminate in my ISP recognizing my password (or not!).

The only thing I can think of to account for my problem other than a fault in my software is the supposition that my browsers encode my password differently (perhaps by their particular kinds of encryption) than my mail clients, and that my ISP temporarily recognized all the three browsers' encodings but not the encodings created by each of my three mail clients. It doesn't sound likely to me; but if this is what you meant, I am prepared to bow to superior knowledge and accept your explanation.

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Answer 6

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Feb 24, 2012 10:33 AM in response to Michael Graubart

When I open my web-mail in my browser, my password is recognized by my ISP automatically.

This happens only when you have chosen to use the Autofill function of that particular browser, or when you use a password manager such as 1Password or LastPass and have "autofill" selected for that particular web site.

But the point is that both the web-mail (browser) process and the mail-client process originate in my computer, and both terminate in my ISP recognizing my password (or not!).

Not really. Connecting to a mail server and querying it for new mail is entirely different than logging into a web-based mail account. They are not the same process, so different results are not unexpected when there's a problem. The password may indeed be accepted by one and not the other, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that there's a software problem.

As I said, this is a common occurrence and in almost all cases it's a temporary problem that is resolved within 30 minutes (often less). If it were happening constantly, that would be an indication of a different problem.

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Answer 7

Feb 24, 2012 10:43 AM in response to kurt188

Thanks very much for this full and detailed explanation. I think I undertand properly now. Next time it happens, I shall just go out for a walk and hope that all will be well when I get home instead of messing about with databases, PRAM and firmware.

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Answer 8

amsj12

Level 1

0 points

Jun 7, 2012 1:07 PM in response to Michael Graubart

I am having the same problem with the same ISP (BT internet) after 3 years of everything working fine. Having read your posts it just looks like it sorted itself out but I've had the problem for 2 weeks! Help!

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Answer 9

Jun 7, 2012 2:00 PM in response to amsj12

I really sympathize, amsj12. I have to confess that I have had no further password problems with BT Internet, and I can't offer any suggestions otther than to contact BT. It does seem as if the problem is with them and not with your (or my) computer and e-mail system, though I also have to admit that i still don't really and fully understand the situation. It would be interesting to hear from you again if you do contact BT about this problem. Good luck, anyway!

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Answer 10

amsj12

Level 1

0 points

Jun 7, 2012 2:10 PM in response to Michael Graubart

I have just reset my keychain, even though it had the correct password, and that seems to have worked for the moment! Thanks x

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Answer 11

Sep 10, 2012 5:30 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Well, I am not replying to Michael Graubart (that's me), but to anyone who has had this problem. I have some new inbformation.

The problem occurred again for me this morning: I could read my e-mails online on BT Internet (so my password was OK), but none of my 3 mail clients (SeaMonkey, Entourage and Apple Mail) would send the password correctly. So I contacted BT Internet (or rather Yahoo!). After quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, they told me that if I wanted to download mail to a client, I should close the webmail window first. That worked! But the strange thing is that it also subsequently worked even if I left the webmail window open while downloading to a client (as I usually do). But it's worth trying.

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Answer 12

Sep 17, 2012 7:11 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Kurt 188, you were absolutely right. I now have definitive information from BTinternet/Yahoo that this problem is caused at their end, not mine. It occurred again today, and I found this on their service-status page:

Mon 17/09/2012 at 14:04Ongoing User uploaded file Yahoo users unable to acces email accounts via email clients.

They say it will be resolved within 2 hours. I hope it will.

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