Why do my SMTP/IMAP/POP servers keep going offline in OS X Yosemite Mail app?

So how was your trip to the Genius Bar @sor67? I'm keen to know if you finally have resolution. I've been wrestling with timeout issues to IMAP for years now, across several MBPs and macOS machines, and across various Wi-Fi base stations. At first I thought the solution in this thread was final for me Apple Mail app no longer connecting to incoming mail server. Alas, it only lasted a few days. Sigh.

Mail is currently behaving itself, but that's after cleaning out my Keychain repository. And temporarily turning off my firmware password because I found it wouldn't allow me to perform an NVRAM reset (as per the suggested solution above).

I have been using Thunderbird for a few months now and its ok - not perfect but ok and a whole lot better than Apple Mail. I suggest you try it as it certainly sorted out my accounts forever going offline as in Mail. The newer version embedded in El Captain is still bugged but I don't know about the Sierra version maybe someone on here can advise.

neilto wrote:

...

I don't know about the Sierra version maybe someone on here can advise.

Nielto,

I've been using Sierra and Mail for some time. My first issue was when migrating from El Cap to Sierra, a couple of my accounts (only Google-based accounts) did go off-line. I found this thread but even before that, I deleted the old accounts and installed them again using the automatic settings for Google in Mail and that took care of it. The IMAP servers haven't dropped again. My other accounts (iCloud, ATT, commercial Server with full manual configuration) have all been fine. So my guess is that something in the configuration protocol between Apple Mail and Google settings was the problem. You might try that to see if you have the same results.

Best Wishes,

Henry

Since downloading the OS X Yosemite upgrade Apple Mail isn't working. I think there's a major bug.

It hangs and won't respond. Can't access the Mail menu bar commands to make any changes. It crashes. It isn't displaying email content. And, quite oddly, the message viewer window is doing a "punch through" and revealing what's displayed on the desktop behind it.

I see many similar complaints about Apple Mail in these forums. I contacted Apple to see if the issues could be resolved - They acted like they haven't heard anything about Apple Mail problems. They had me re-install Yosemite. Same Apple Mail issues still exists. This is a disaster for those of us who use Apple MAil in our business communications. APPLE HELP!

Does anyone know of a solid work-around, a patch or alternate?

I'm on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014; 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3)

If Mail is working elsewhere (i.e. on iPhone or iPad) but not working on laptop, try this. In Mail > Preferences > Accounts, in the 'Advanced' tab, uncheck "Automatically detect and maintain account settings", then check "Allow insecure authentication", then save. For me [MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)] this, so far, has got things back to normal - about 24 hours now of receiving and sending mail with no issues as yet.

Don't keep re-entering your mail password as this might have your mail provider's alert software shut you down.

Changing the DNS (for example to the ones google provides: 8.8.8.8 and 8.4.4.4) worked immediately! Every other solution i tried, did not!

I had this same problem but NOT in all of my SMTP account connections, only one. My wife's iMac and mine are the same except she has Mavericks installed and I "upgraded" to Yosemite. I WAS able to receive mail from the accounts. I could not send through this particular SMTP server. It repeatedly went off-line despite multiple re-entries of the detail.

Her mail connection worked fine (receiving and sending)...mine did no so I checked my setups for each account against the ones she had. They were exactly the same. After hours of frustrating back and forth (they rebooted SMTP servers and performed multiple checks) with my ISP support team (who, with me finally agreed that it was MY machine that had the problem), I tried something totally illogical. In addition to the suggestions (elsewhere in the forum) to deselect the auto detect of settings, I changed the authentication from PASSWORD to MD5 Challenge-Response. The Port number is the same (non-SSL for mine). The User Name is the same, and the Password is the same. Amazingly it just started worked again. When I set it back to PASSWORD authentication, it stopped working. I do not know (nor do I want to know) the design differences between PASSWORD authentication and MD5 Challenge-Response authentication that might be causing this oddity. It is simply more anecdotal information that you may wish to investigate in your situation. I hope that it is of some help.

Phil

Sorry I'm no help, but I have a similar problem !!

Since upgrading to Yosemite my mailbox is empty and I have no idea where new mail goes. I suspect there is a new (empty) mailbox involved, and the old one exists somewhere.

I downloaded & installed Apple updates to iPhoto, etc 10/19/14 on my mid 2011 Mac as recommended for Yosemite. I was using Maverick at the time. I downloaded Yosemite a few days later. I think the first email problem showed up between those two events.

At this time I use time machine to recover mail, and then mailbox use is normal. When the mail program or computer is turned off it resets to an empty box.

I can send and receive mail on my iPad but not my Mac.

Frustrating !!

I seem to have solved the problem for both my Gmail and AOL accounts. Somehow the outgoing mail settings were screwed up with the Yosemite upgrade.

Here are the directions:

To verify whether your account settings are accurate

1. Click the Mail icon on the Dock.

2. Click Mail, and then click Preferences.

3. In the Accounts window, verify the following settings:

• The Description can be any name of your choice.
• The email Address should be your Username followed by @aol.com or @aim.com. (This also worked for Gmail.)
• The Full Name can be any name of your choice.
• The Incoming Mail Server should be imap.aol.com or imap.aim.com.
• The User Name should be your AOL or AIM Username.
• The Password should be your AOL or AIM password.

4. Click the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) drop down menu, and then click Edit Server List.

5. Click the Advanced tab, verify the settings given below, and then click OK.

• Ensure that the Use custom port option is selected and type 587. (This also worked for Gmail.)
• Ensure that the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) check box does not have a check mark in it.
• Ensure that Password is selected in the Authentication drop down menu.
• Ensure that the User Name is your AOL or AIM Username.
• Ensure that the Password is your AOL or AIM password.

6. Close all open windows.

Again, the AOL directions worked for Gmail, too.

Good luck!

Hi,

it's ok for me.

But, check "Allow insecure authentication" it's ok for security ?

Thanks

Sylvain

This does not address the issue that *after* I've made these changes, they revert to the old (useless) settings.

I had been using the Mail > Add Accounts... or Accounts... menu to add my IMAP accounts, had the same problem that it just wasn't working.

I think the issue is that it's not properly saving the usernames, at least that's what I found. All of my usernames need to be in the format of name@domain.com but it was deleting everything after "@".

My solution was to add or edit new IMAP accounts from Mail > Preferences...

That was where I could see all my usernames were incorrect, but if I changed them there it seems to save properly. All the changes I made from Preferences seemed to stick so far.

Hope that works for some others as well!

It worked for me:uncheck "Automatically detect and maintain account settings", then check "Allow insecure authentication", then save".

Many thanks!

Sadly that doesn't work for me.

Turning off SSL authentification is very bad idea. You simlpe can lost your email account.