my advanced tab says "apple token" for authentication and not "password" Is this OK

Thanks Csound1 I actually think it might be something to do with the icloud density (pun intended) in my City at present because there is a large international event going on here and huge increase in traffic. Sometimes icloud mail inbox works on iphone5 when on telephone mobile network but never for the last few days on cable - WIFI interface. Then my macbook icloud inbox has not worked at all except in the depths of the night - around 2am-3am. Is there anyone out there who knows what I am talking about? That icloud email works fine on outgoing but because of overload of icloud in the wider local area that inbox doesn't work? Does it happen in other cities around the world where there is a significant increase in traffic over the space of a few days? I will have to wait until this event is over next week.

Hi Csound1

Thanks for your two previous comments. The event has finished and bandwidth/access has returned to 'normal' which in our city is pretty slow anyway. This is really starting to bug me. I have two entirely independent accounts (1) a cable account with a wifi router and (2) at my work an ADSL account also with a wifi. I have found that without changing as single factor in my icloud email account that this problem [email not connecting to icloud from my Macbook Air running on wifi through to cable and my iphone5 while on wifi too] ONLY HAPPENS AT HOME on cable. But 3 kilometres away at my office on ADSL the icloud email works fine on both devices. This would tend to indicate that there is something wrong with the way that icloud server is matching up with the ISP cable which is different to the [same ISP] service through ADSL. The problem is therefore not fatal. I just have to wait until I get to work each day (with macbook and iphone5 in my satchel) until I can receive icloud mail but it sure bugs me. Even the variables at the icloud account tab - like moving from password to token and even re-setting the entire account does not seam to help. This is the message I get at connection doctor "Could not connect to this icloud IMAP server. Check your network connection and that you entered the correct information in the accounts preferences." Any furtther thoughts? Kind Regards Beyond5th

Thanks again Csound1 you are very patient. I apologise for being confused. I have now rung my ISP a second time and they are investigating whether this is a problem just with icloud email on their cable platform. This is because I also use the same ISP at work but there the platform is ADSL and I have not had the same problem with my two devices (macbook air and iphone5) using icloud email on ADSL. I hope that clarifies things for you. The error message I get when trying to use icloud email on the cable is set out in my previous post March 19. I now understand your point Csound1 that this is an ISP problem and not an icloud problem. Thanks for that. I will get back to you when my ISP have investigated. Kind Regards beyond5th

Hi Csound, another week passes and my ISP hasn't replied to me in any format. So much for their promise that they had "escalated" it. Oh well. Necessity is the mother of desperation so I have been playing around with my settings for my iphone5 and my macbook air OSX 10.8.3 so they are both up to date. Historical posts in other discussions indicate that icloud doesn't necessarily like two (or more) apple devices logging into the same account to find icloud mail at the same time through the same ISP provided POP server (to get mail). There is plenty of talk about this for previous generation phones and op systems. It was just that for the first half year or so in my part of the (real) world it didn't seem to matter too much - the ISP could cope. AND as I say above on the same ISP but using ADSL account and not a Cable account (i.e. a different account with the same server) there has never been and is not now a problem. Now it seems though they are going backwards - not that they have actually told me...because I have now worked out that if I TURN OFF all the other of my non icloud POP mail accounts on the iphone5 AND also stop using the WAN and use instead the mobile data connection then "bingo" the icloud mail immediately becomes available on the macbook air (for wifi). So effectively I have fixed it. Also though it does mean I am going to have to be much more careful to note whether the two apple devices are both on similtaneous hooked up to my POP ISP mail server. [it is not a problem getting to icloud account using Safari.] AND revert to pc/windows to access on login my other non icloud mail accounts - for the moment anyway. Thanks for staying with the thread...Beyond5th -