Mail slow authenticating to Yosemite server

Question

Level 1

15 points

Mail slow authenticating to Yosemite server

I'm running mail on a Yosemite server, and Mac Mail client on Yosemite. With the "Activity" window open on the Mail client, I see two copies of "Communicating with server: Authenticating" a lot. On the server /Library/Logs/Mail/mail-err.log is filled with lines:

Nov 06 10:58:06 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<MuZNkS4HfQDAqAAd>): Credentials could not be verified, username or password is invalid.

Nov 06 10:58:06 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<MuZNkS4HfQDAqAAd>): authentication failed for user=simon, method=DIGEST-MD5

Nov 06 11:00:12 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<suuzmS4HggDAqAAd>): Credentials could not be verified, username or password is invalid.

Nov 06 11:00:12 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<suuzmS4HggDAqAAd>): authentication failed for user=simon, method=DIGEST-MD5

Nov 06 11:00:18 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<BLfTmS4HhADAqAAd>): Credentials could not be verified, username or password is invalid.

Nov 06 11:00:18 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<BLfTmS4HhADAqAAd>): authentication failed for user=simon, method=DIGEST-MD5

Nov 06 11:00:28 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<okUwmi4HhgDAqAAd>): Credentials could not be verified, username or password is invalid.

Nov 06 11:00:28 auth: Error: od(simon,192.168.0.29,<okUwmi4HhgDAqAAd>): authentication failed for user=simon, method=DIGEST-MD5

In the Server Mail settings, I have "Authenticate Using" set to "Local Users" (which checks the "Digest (CRAM-MD5)" and "Digest-MD5" boxes).

On the client, in the Mail IMAP settings for the account I have selected (picking what I think will be relevant) "Automatically detect and maintain account settings", "Port: 993", "Use SSL", "Authentication: Password" and "Use IDLE command if server supports it". I have NOT selected "Allow insecure authentication". I have previously selected "Authenticaion: MD5 Challenge-Response", but it seems to revert to "Password". I have an iPad and iPhone, both of which have "MD5 Challenge-Response" set, and don't appear to generate anything in mail-err.log

Mail from the Yosemite client works, it is just a bit sluggish. Under Mavericks new messages seemed to arrive simultaneously on all three clients, but now they hit iOS first.

Posted on Nov 6, 2014 3:24 AM

Reply

Answer 1

jilbert Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 6, 2014 9:19 AM in response to jilbert

OK, I think I have solved this. In the client Mail app I de-selected "Automatically detect and maintain account settings". Login then failed. Authentication had switched itself to "Password" while automatic detection of account settings was on. I changed authentication back to "MD5 Challenge-Response", and login now works, I don't get "Authenticating" hanging around in the activity window, and I don't get lots of "authentication failed" messages in the mail logs on the server.

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 20, 2014 12:35 PM in response to jilbert

Thank you, this helped solve issues on this thread as well: Re: Dovecot Repeatedly Crashing on Mavericks Server

Reply

Answer 3

Roger H

Level 1

12 points

Dec 13, 2014 2:41 PM in response to jilbert

I had experienced exactly the same problem connecting to iCloud – lots of communication with the mail server (but no error messages). Having unchecked the "Automatically detect and maintain account settings" box it all works fine, just like it used to before the upgrade to Yosemite. Thanks!

Reply

Answer 4

jasimon9

Level 1

4 points

Feb 4, 2015 7:50 AM in response to jilbert

Same experience, with an additional bug:

Mail very, very, very slow, times out, crashes.
Removing "Automatically detect and maintain account settings" on all accounts cures the problem; Mail then very fast
Unfortunately, later those settings re-enable themselves, and you have to turn them off again. :-(

Reply