apple mail can't connect to email account att and yahoo

Mail Keeps Asking for Password

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I starting having this same problem with all accounts associatiated with AT&T/Yahoo. For years I have had the same GMail, AOL, Hotmail (MSN), and Yahoo/AT&T email addresses. And, for years, I have been using OS X Mail as my mail program for all the email addresses. I have not had any problems in the past with login issues related to any of these accounts.

In the last month or so, every few minutes while the OS X Mail program is running I will get a pop-up window that states, "Mail can't connect to the account "xxxxxxx". Enter the password for user "xxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx". I then enter the same password I have always used for that account and it then successfully connects. However, several minutes later, I will get the same pop-up message for the same accounts. These only come up for accounts associatiated with AT&T/Yahoo.

I logged directly into my AT&T/Yahoo accounts through my browser and am successful in connecting to them.

I clicked on the link above in Eric Root's response titled, "Mail Keeps Asking for Password" to see if I did have a misconfiguration in my Keychain Access program, despite the fact that this problem has just started after years of it being configured correctly. I went through the process indicated at that link. None of the checkboxes in the "login" Keychain Settings were checked. So, that was not the problem.

Something has changed recently, either with the AT&T/Yahoo login servers or with the OS X Mail program. I think it is more likely to be the AT&T/Yahoo servers. However, that still does not give me an answer to this annoyance.

Maybe this will help. If you monitor the "More Like This" box (top right), other threads appear. Opening them usually displays other threads

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4564485?answerId=20923824022#20923824022

That is a good idea. I did go to the link you mentioned and they were basically saying to log directly into the AT&T/Yahoo account through the browser and that settled their problem with OS X Mail. I had already done that though, since I knew that could be a problem. Unfortunately, it did not solve the problem I am having.

RE: "Mail, Contacts and Calendars preferences can't connect to the Yahoo account "bellsouth.net".

I recently changed my ATT U-Verse password…and Mail quit working… it wouldn't send or receive, Safari worked fine. I tried to send an email and a warning message popped up, "Mail, Contacts and Calendars preferences can't connect to the Yahoo account "bellsouth.net". In smaller type the next sentence read, "Enter the password for user johndoe@bellsouth.net". The Password box was highlighted in blue so I just typed in my new password and my email message was immediately sent…but… I still couldn't receive messages AND the above "can't connect" warning message kept popping up on the screen at random.

Here's the Fix that worked for me. (The problem is that the new password was changed/updated on the keychains "smpt.att.yahoo.com" name-but- the name "pop.att.yahoo.com" didn't update to my new password).

Go to your Utility windows and select Keychain Access. Under Category select Passwords. Now check your password for your current (newest dated) name, "smpt.att.yahoo.com". Now check the password under, "pop.att.yahoo.com". Mine wasn't the same as my newest password found in my

"smpt.att.yahoo.com" window so I deleted my old password in the "pop.att.yahoo.com" window and typed in my new password, then selected "Save Changes". MY MAIL NOW WORKED…and no more warning messages cropped up. Problem was fixed.

I kept having this problem. Thinking back I remember this problem started when I changed my yahoo password.I have looked and searched and tried all these solutions with only temporary success. I have even tried the keychain update fix with only temporary fix then back to the same problem. Finally I found something else to try and seems to be working so far. This is what I did:

1. Go to System Preferences

2. Under Internet & Wireless click on the Mail, Contacts &Calendars icon

3. Click the Yahoo icon on the left side then click the Details box on the right

4. Reenter the password

5. Click OK and close the Mail, Contacts & Calendars box

6. Quit Mac Mail then restart Mac Mail

So far this seems to be working. I have done this on both my iMac and Macbook and as I said It is working as of now. No guarantees, but this is working better than anything else I have tried.

I spent 1 hor 19 minutes with ATT tech support today and inside of an hour my att.sbc.yahoo mac mail went down again. I called back again and was then greeted with "you have to pay extra for mac mail support" I said "I am switching to Comcast."

ATT is upgrading their service in my area and it looks like they are forcing people into a much high priced service for little benefit.

Anyhow someone from ATT online chat showed me this link

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401568#fbid=NNL1-4FmHAj

ATT only has information on Mac Mail 4.0 I haven't tried it yet. This info is only for pop mail and I am setup for IMAP on up to date Mountain Lion. Too tired tonight to try messing with it.

Anyoe with suggestions on this subject would be very welcomed by me.

Thanks.

I have had a ATT tech take control of my computer three times now and within a day or two my ATT mail account says I have the wrong password.

I have also talked to various techs and get everything from "your accout was hacked", to "you have more than one device checking for mail at the same timel". Yep, my iPhone and my iMac and my macbook sometimes are all online together. And they do all check for mail.

And then there is the very un-helpful "this is a Apple software problem" tech who doesn't know anything about Apple computer software and doesn't want to be bothered either.

One tech did actually call me a few days later and had to re do his earlier work. Mail only worked for a few days.

I don't know weather to throw stones at Mac Mail or ATT.

One puzzeling thing is with the exact same setting my iMac will get mail while my laptop won't. If I didn't have a gmail account and a icloud account I would never get any mail.

There seem to be a number of Mac users having problems with Bellsouth email and the Mac mail app. I agree the two enteties could work together and solve the problem for many. I can send, but no connection for getting email. I tried a suggestion above only to discover System Preferences, Internet & Wireless has no mail icon to change settings. This may be some of the problem with OS 10.6.8 anyway.

Using yahoo online mail is irritating because you have to slowly load each message one at a time to view. I want my dependable mail program back!

Having the same issues too for a month or so now. Everytime I log into the Mail program I get this:

The bresnan.net POP server “mail.bresnan.net” rejected the password for user “NAME@bresnan.net”

Have no problems logging into the email from the browser. So it's not an issue with the ISP or the password. And I've tried the whole keychain "solution". That's never worked once.

What is going on here?

Good morning,

I was having the same problem many of you are and I used the link that dawa106 posted, which is below. In the process I changed the default settings from IMAP to POP and then used the settings in the link. It now works fine and I will see how that goes.

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401568#fbid=NNL1-4FmHAj

Good luck.

Please let us know how it worked out for you ( cms4rks) long term. Sometimes I would make changes and mail would work for a few days and then back to the same old problem.

I had the same problem with trying to access Yahoo Mail via Pop server in Mac Mail.

To solve: Log in to your Yahoo Mail account via your browser and sign in. Go to Mail Preferences on the right hand side option under the "cog". Where you need to check the box that says "allow pop 3 mail" because I think this is a new option that wasn't there before. As soon as you check this box it will work.

I just tried that and I saw no place to allow pop 3 mail. I checked all the options available to me there. Perhaps you left out a step.