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Mac OS X 10.7.4 Mail keeps asking my password?

I'm having a hard time with this. My Yahoo! mail keeps asking for my password when I know I type it in correctly. I check the box where it says "Remember my password in keychain". Here is what I have done to solve it:


Reset / repair keychain in keychain preferences.


Reinstall Mac OS X Lion


Reformatted my SSD and put Lion on again.


Tried deleting the com.apple.mail.plist in ~/Library/Preferences


To no avail, it still keeps asking for my password. Keychain must have become corrupted as far as my Yahoo! mail is concerned.


Here is the specs on my computer: Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4, 120 GB Intel SSD in Bay 1 (OS HD) and 500 GB WD Scorpio Blue (Data HDD) + 8 GB RAM. I have my account linked up to my 500 GB WD Data HDD and not my SSD. I am sure it has something to do with that, I am just not sure how to fix it.


If anyone can give me any suggestions, that would be great.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Jun 2, 2012 11:39 AM

Reply
90 replies

Jun 2, 2012 4:12 PM in response to stirfry

Our new Macs (Macbook Pro and IMac) are having the same trouble with our yahoo and hotmail accounts. The mail program works fine for awhile, then consistently asked for the password again. The checkbooxes described above are both unchecked. My gmail accounts are not having this problem. Please advise. Thanks!

Jun 3, 2012 9:51 PM in response to stirfry

Well, after a night of reinstalling Lion, formatting and reinstalling Lion, deleting the Keychain folder in ~/Library/Preferences it still was coming up. I went to the Apple Store to a Genius Bar appointment. I tried my account on a MacBook Air they had. Still did it. After all that work, it seems to be a Yahoo! problem. I e-mailed them and let them know about it we will see what they say (they will probably blame it on Apple, or at least that is the answer I am expecting). Oh, I also brought up Mail "Activity" under "Window" "Activity". That showed me after I logged in 3 times (with the correct password) that it started working. Not a Mac problem. It is definetly a Yahoo! problem.

Jul 30, 2012 6:19 PM in response to stirfry

DITTO! July 30, 2012. Contacted yahoo technical support today. Yahoo messed around for 45 minutes, changed mail preferences, and I ended unable to receive any mail in MacMail. At their instruction I sent myself 4 test messages. When I told him my iPad received the messages but not the iMac, they would still not accept the fact that they have a problem. (Person at Yahoo was not very familiar with MacMail). After I shut down the call, I re-set MacMail with Mail Assistant, and I'm receiving mail again, but still have the password problem.

Jul 30, 2012 6:52 PM in response to leadsleddeer

I have a friend with a ymail account with similar problem on Lion. So I created a new ymail account for myself, and set about testing it in Snow Leopard. It is not working very long until it goes into the PW prompt business.


From what I can read, it is simply that yahoo has made a poor implementation of IMAP, Lion and Snow Leopard default to set the account up as IMAP (and that is the protocol my friend and most people prefer), and something about the frequent checking by Mail to tell Yahoo it is there -- are you? is triggering a loss of the password. I suspect it is at that point a deliberate action because the server has concluded, erroneously, that something is suspicious.


Btw, my friend's iPad and iPhone get along just fine with the server, but I did not add to my iOS devices so as to not introduce any conflict cause.


It is not a Mail problem, but one of Yahoo's making. Some people have not been able to get them to admit they offer IMAP, btw. I can test it in Lion anytime, but have not seen reason to do that considering what is happening in Snow Leopard.


Ernie

Aug 5, 2012 10:27 AM in response to duckless2nd

Before I spend my time / gas driving to the Apple store, waiting in line for my appointment, etc etc, I try to do everything I can to fix it. Since I have all my data on my secondary hard drive, its easy to format and still keep all my stuff intact. The Apple store also didn't know if it was an OS issue or not.


Duckless, just a friendly word of advice, it's hard to tell if people are being sarcastic via text. Especially when you don't know them. I think you could have gotten your point accross without being condesending or arrogant.

Aug 6, 2012 5:29 AM in response to duckless2nd

I can report that the problem exists in Snow Leopard, and without having the account set up on any iPhone, iPad or other iOS device. It is something that Yahoo has changed fairly recently. I was testing with a brand new account for a friend who thought it was Lion introduced -- it is not that. Probably Yahoo's reaction to so many getting hacked on their system.


Ernie

Aug 7, 2012 11:42 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

So I'm not sure if I understand - was this issue ever resolved? My mail (@sbcglobal.net) has been having problems with the password being rejected for several weeks now... So annoying!! I went into my accounts online and changed my passwords, deleted my accounts in apple mail and started over.... Still the password for my main sbcglobal account keeps getting rejected by the server. Should I just call att/yahoo support and have them talk me through it over the phone?

Mac OS X 10.7.4 Mail keeps asking my password?

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