Yahoo IMAP server - Rejected Password

Corsario, I'm glad this has worked for you. I'd like to know how long it has been stable. And whether your desktop Yahoo account is set to POP or IMAC. Your suggestions (setting fetch data to "manual" on your iDevices) did not ultimately work for me. It may be that I'm on OS10.6.8. But as Yahoo states clearly that it does not support IMAP on desktop Mail, it does seem that there is a chance of inconsistency, and that is my concern.

I have found that the solution Onatop posted yesterday also has worked for me, for a week. To rephrase Onatop: regardless what the ISP is, In Yahoo Mail (web mail) under Options>Settings>POP and Forwarding, select Forward Yahoo Mail to another address, then select one of 3 more choices. I selected "Forward Only" to my gmail.com address. Make sure to save the setting. This forwards mail to my IMAP gmail account on my desktop and also to my iphone. Everything is in sync. No more password issue.

This workaround means setting up a gmail account. But for me it was a small price to pay (free).

GG

GG:

The answers:

1. It has been stable for over a month, maybe six weeks or longer.

2. I have two yahoo accounts. One is a rocketmail domain. This one is IMAP. The other is a "bellsoutth" domain that I can not delete as it is my DSL provider. This one has to be POP according to the tech support of ATT. I'm having no problems whatsoever under either one since I changed my iDevices to Manual for the yahoo mail, as described in my posting.

3. The above fix was first implemented under Lion. This week I upgraded my iMac and my MBP 15 Retina. The yahoo/bellsouth email under the Mail program continues to work fine. It asked me once after the upgrade for the Yahoo Rocketmail password and that was it.

I would recommend starting from scratch. Go to the Mail preferences in your Mac. Delete the Yahoo account, then make the changes in your iDevices. Finally, go to your Mac, use the System Preferences and set up the Yahoo account automatically. Let the Mac set up the servers and the like and viola!! I did not make any changes to the Yahoo account under the Mail app "Accounts" panel. Whatever the Mac set up for me has worked sweet.

Good luck!!

No, Shootka, they're all IMAP and configured identically. The only difference I can perceive is that (a) the one with the problem is linked to the primary @pacbell.net account (for our AT&T DSL), and (b) it's the one that is most often also accessed in a web browser via Yahoo!'s web mail interface.

In the end, I took someone else's advice and forwarded everything to Gmail and reconfigured the Mac, iPhone and iPad accordingly. No problems at all. Works great. And I even adjusted the Gmail settings so that I can keep using my @yahoo.com address.

I took your advice, Corsario and everything's working fine. I even found a source online that describes how to set up a Gmail account in iOS so that you can continue to send from the @yahoo.com address. (The only reason I want to keep using that address instead of the Gmail address is that I've had it so long and I'm too lazy to change it in so many places.) So now things are great on my Mac, iPhone and iPad. Thanks.

Excellent! This worked like a charm!

Correction: It was Onatop's advice I took, not Corsario's, because I don't want to manually check for e-mail on my iOS devices. Forwarding to Gmail and changing settings to allow me to keep using my @yahoo.com and @pacbell.net addresses was the best option for me.

FYI, this isn't an Apple issue. I only use Windows 7 PCs. As many others suspected, it's a problem with Yahoo's authentication servers worldwide.

Yahoo's network is slowly falling apart due to their inability to provide sufficient resources to support their network infrastructure. They are running out of money; hence, no money to pay engineers to maintain their network. Their last remaining resources seem to be focused on their news web page and search engine. Their end-user support (even for premium paying users) is bare-bone minimum with very limited hours.

Unfortunately, this issue is on a downhill trend. It's not something that can be "fixed" using an email client.

It's actaully sad. I've used yahoo services since 1993. Unfortunately, its time for me to completely switch to GMail.

Corsario,

Your solution is working. This was driving me nuts. I could tell my mac sbcglobal mail would come in FINE at my resdential house. But if I went anywhere else with my laptop and connected to a different network, no luck. Thank you!

Not sure about anyone else, but I haven't been prompted for a password for about 2 weeks!!!

The only things I done ( not by choice), was to reset my wifi on my IPad as it lost the connection??

I re-input all info and password, and since then I've had no trouble.

?coincedence?, but I'm happy :-)

For those of you who have used yahoo imap outside the apple world (on any common PC), will realize this isn't a mac-specific issue; it's caused by yahoo's authentication servers. These authentication servers are inaccessible (unpingable) no matter what software is used on the client side. Just trying pingining them. If they aren't available, they aren't available. No software setting on your device is going to change that.

The only workaround that works for me is to use the mail forwarding option; and just point to another reliable email account. However, the only drawback is I end up replying to people with my gmail address.

Intermittent password issue, Yahoo problem?

I have two IMAP/POP Yahoo accounts; one is a Plus (paid) account. I have had intermittent problems with both and on all my iOS devices, Mac 10.5x on a PPC, iPad, iPhone and on my Windows 7 machine and Outlook 2010 all setup for IMAP. I think it is a problem with Yahoo, I have re-setup my accounts on my Mac and Windows machine and it keeps happening. It seems to come and go but more frequently now. Trying to get support at Yahoo is impossible to useless. When I ask a question I get a form answer, trying to ask too many questions, you will may get the first answered. I really dont think they read what I send them.

Corsario, thanks. This is the only solution that has worked at all for me, though periodically Yahoo mail on my iPhone will pop up a message saying that my Yahoo password is not recognized. If I manually reload mail on the iPhone once or twice (no need to enter my password again), eventually the mail will be pulled down from the server.

Likewise, in Mac Mail, periodically this "fix" will fail, and I have to repeat the process you described. The first fix lasted about two weeks.

The problem is clearly on the Yahoo servers' end, so I guess until they fix the situation, we're stuck with workarounds.

I'm leery of switching to the POP server. Seems to me before IMAP, the POP server has to download ALL your online emails. Can you ask it to only download, say, a year's or two year's worth?

Switching to the pop service is actually worse. I switched from Yahoo's pop3 service to IMAP because pop3 was very unreliable.

The best thing I ever did was enabling yahoo forwarding to a reliable email provider. If I'm not mistaken, there's an option to forward all old email too. So, you will be able to receive yahoo email reliably. The only drawback to this is you have to reply back with your new email address.

I switched to Thunderbird after getting fed up with this issue. Not one problem since switching to Thunderbird. Use mail on iphone when i'm not near laptop.