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Is Anyone Else Having Yahoo! IMAP Server Reject Their Password?

A couple of weeks ago my Mac Mail started returning the following message in a pop-up box every time it went online to the server to get my email:

The Yahoo! IMAP server “imap.mail.yahoo.com” rejected the password for user “xxxxxxx@att.net


My email has worked flawlessly for over a year since I purchased my Macbook Pro, and it has only been recently that there has been any issues. A Bing or Google search quickly revealed I am not alone in having this problem. Several people offered solutions, but all seemed to admit their problem returned after an hour or two. I am able to retrieve my email eventually, if I re-input my password as many as 7 or 8 times in the pop-up box, but the same thing happens again in 5 minutes when it tries to sync with the online account again.


Today I spent considerable time with AT&T Tech Support and the only thing we were able to determine was that since my email messages were on the server and I was able to read, forward, send, and receive from the online account, the trouble was not with AT&T mail. There were a couple of discrepencies, however. AT&T says they only support POP3 but my Mac Mail is connecting through IMAP and there is no way that I can find to change it to POP3. I'm not sure what that difference is. Also, AT&T wants to use port 995 for the email but Mac Mail is using port 993. That can be changed and has been changed, but although it stopped the pop-up window from appearing, my email is never synced with the online account with port 995.


AT&T Support routed me to an online help page to verify my settings, but as I answered their questions regarding my current OS, version, email client, etc. I ran into a snag: the support only goes up to Mac Mail v4.x and I'm running v5.2. It made me wonder if one of the Apple updates I performed recently upgraded my Mac Mail and that there is now some kind of a conflict, yet unresolved.


I have not contacted Apple support yet, but that is my next step. To me the problem is either with the Mac Mail App or the Yahoo! IMAP. Perhaps it is simply a matter of timing, where Yahoo! IMAP is looking for the password when Mac Mail isn't sending it or visa versa. I have to believe that others in the Apple community must be experiencing something similar to myself and I was wondering if there is anyone that has solved this problem. I have extensive PC experience but I am relatively new to the Mac world. Perhaps I am overlooking something very simple. Thanks in advance if anyone has any suggestions.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 14, 2012 12:25 PM

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Posted on Jul 14, 2012 12:31 PM

There is a problem with some accounts using the ATT/Yahoo servers. The problem is more likely with Yahoo. Many people are having these problems. I suspect Yahoo servers are just overloaded. Mine has cleared up for the most part, but still having occasional problems.


Best I can tell you is to use the webmail when it's bad. You can also forward the email from the website to another email address.

20 replies
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Jul 14, 2012 12:31 PM in response to jgoff87

There is a problem with some accounts using the ATT/Yahoo servers. The problem is more likely with Yahoo. Many people are having these problems. I suspect Yahoo servers are just overloaded. Mine has cleared up for the most part, but still having occasional problems.


Best I can tell you is to use the webmail when it's bad. You can also forward the email from the website to another email address.

Jul 14, 2012 1:17 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Thanks, Glenn. I agree the trouble is more-than-likely with Yahoo. Whereas I don't mind going online to get my email (a minor annoyance), I do mind the stupid pop-up window every five minutes that stays on top of every other window and will not allow you to continue whatever you were doing until you address it (a MAJOR annoyance) - especially when you have to input the password 7 or 8 times in a row with about 3 seconds in between each pop-up window. Like I said, this only started a couple of weeks ago BUT my calendar program (iCal) was doing something similar about two months ago. Thanks for the assistance. I tend to agree with you that we'll just have to live with it, although from what I'm reading on some of the posts in various groups it seems to be a Mac problem, and PCs are immune. So perhaps there is some kind of a conflict somewhere. Taking someone's advice to change the Outgoing Port from 465 to 587 seems to have helped...a little - I only have to input my password 3 or 4 times now. LOL! I'm wondering if Mountain Lion will fix this issue. I'm not sure if upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion will also upgrade the Mail App. We'll see. One more annoying thing, if I might complain a little, is the fact that I cannot change the default font color for my emails. That seems like a relatively easy and fundamental thing to do but every time I go into preferences to set the default font, font size, and color it ignores it. Very aggravating. Anyway, I'm done complaining. Thanks again for taking the time to answer, Glenn.

Jul 14, 2012 1:30 PM in response to jgoff87

I never liked the fact that ATT let yahoo take over the email for them. Works good for a long time then starts giving problems. I had major issues last week with only one account. Was the same on 2 different devices. The other 2 accounts worked OK with the normal occasional reject or server time out.

Yahoo does not advertize the account can be set as IMAP, so they will not support it even though it works.


If it get to be a constant pop up annoyance, then you can deselect the Include This Account when checking for new mail. You will have to select the account and get mail manually when you want to check for it. You might also try in Mail preferences to change the time for checking for new mail to a longer timeframe.


I can't say whether or not PC users have issues. Hopefully Mountain Lion will work a bit differently where there is more compatability with Apple and Yahoo mail servers.


Only thing I can suggest is to make sure your KeyChain is OK and that there are no duplicate passwords for the incoming and outgoing servers for the account.


Good Luck

Jul 14, 2012 2:17 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I did change the frequency that Mail went to the server, first to 30 minutes and then to manual, but it is still a "pain" to go through the login process repeatedly. I guess I'll have to log in online, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a mail client. Someone suggested Mozilla Thunderbird, which may be an option. It's free, which I like, and from what I hear it does not have the same issues I'm experiencing with my Apple Mail. Because I was new to Macs and wasn't sure if I would like them or be able to adapt to a different system (not to mention terrified to give up my PC roots) I only incorporated one of my email accounts when I first got this Mac back in June 2011, so deselecting it wouldn't do any good either. I didn't set up the KeyChain to keep my email password (at least I don't think I did). I opened it up but I didn't see anything under my user that referred to Apple Mail. I'll figure this out eventually, but the process has brought back dark memories of my fight with Windows and other PC-related software; I wasn't expecting these kinds of problems with a Mac. Oh well...live and learn. Take care, Glenn.

--John

Jul 14, 2012 2:39 PM in response to jgoff87

You should have the password in keychain, or else it would constantly ask you to save it there. Look for the incoming server name and the smtp server name. It will not be an application password, as you will have that for the website.


If you deselect the box to include account when checking for new mail, it will stop the automatic checking for that account. It will still check when you hit get mail manually.

You should not have to log into the account in Mail to check for new messages as long as it's open. The password is saved and should be provided by Keychain each time you check or send mail. Mail doesn not stay logged into the server. It logs in and out each time you check for Mail.


As for the other applications you mentioned, it works the same for Outlook with failures as it does with Apple Mail. So, I doubt that the other applications will fair any better.

Jul 14, 2012 3:45 PM in response to jgoff87

This issue has to do with the servers ATT is using to host the email accounts. The authentication information Mail is sending to the ATT server is being rejected by the ATT server. ATT has posted the issue on their website and they are working on it.


http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB412563&cv=804&_requestid=597929#fb id=Fn9PWx5P6pZ


It is an issue with the ATT server, and not your computer. It will work with iOS devices because mobile devices use ActiveSync to send communicate with the server.

Jul 14, 2012 4:16 PM in response to jgoff87

You're welcome


I use to work for AT&T and i know how they are with admitting problems You know they have problems getting the word out to customers when they can't even enlighten their support about problems. I'm sure after thousand of trouble calls that they decided to finally check into it. It takes a lot for them to actually post a problem.

Thank goodness they finally admitted it. Maybe they will get a fix soon.

Jul 23, 2012 3:14 AM in response to jgoff87

I am not using AT&T email and am having the same error:


The connection to the server “imap.mail.yahoo.com” on port 993 timed out.


In Apple Mail with a simple Yahoo account. Other times it is calendar on Yahoo that gives iCal errors. Let's see how long this new Yahoo CEO stays and how much more she earns when she is fired while their system gets worse and worse.


Imran

Jul 23, 2012 4:06 PM in response to jgoff87

I had the same problem for the last two or three weeks. I have a bellsouth.net account, and I starting getting that Yahoo! IMAP server password rejection issue when using Mac Mail 5.2 as the client. Exchanged emails with the AT&T/Yahoo/Uverse support folks a couple times--got some hints, but no solution.


Finally, I decided to try a different email client. I have Office 2011 for Mac installed, I just wasn't using Outlook as an email client. Interestingly, when I inputted my bellsouth.net login credentials when setting up the account, Outlook automatically set it up as a POP account rather than as an IMAP account (Mac Mail sets it up as IMAP). The automatically populated account settings were still not quite right, but after a short while of fooling with them, I got it working smoothly. No more password rejection errors. I'm not sure I am prepared to say it is a Mac Mail issue vs. a Yahoo! issue, but there it is. Maybe not an ideal solution if you prefer the simplicity of Mac Mail, but Outlook 2011 isn't too bad a client.

Jul 23, 2012 5:49 PM in response to DMEaton

Well, writing that prior response gave me the hint I needed to get Mac Mail going again. Left to its own devices, Mac Mail will set the account up as IMAP. But you can force it to set up as a POP account. Delete the old account (warning: you will at least lose sent mails, maybe more stuff). Click the plus sign to add the account back. Fill out the fields on the first account setup window, but hold down the option key when you hit continue. This will bypass the autosetup and allow you to set it up as a POP account. AT&T POP settings for various domains can be found on this page: http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401570&ct=9000086&pv=1&title=Email +server+settings+(POP+and+SMTP)#fbid=X1bPOyyY3Ud


I'm not sure if those settings will do the trick in your particular case, but the key does seem to be to set it up as a POP rather than IMAP account.

Is Anyone Else Having Yahoo! IMAP Server Reject Their Password?

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