Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Does anyone else here use Mail?

Our email is conducted through Mail, the one which comes with the Mac. Something very strange is now happening which has me stumped and apparently, the ISP.

There are only two email addresses. Both have the same password which has never changed. Since about 10 days ago, when clicking on Get Mail on my Mac, everything proceeds as it should.

Clicking on Get Mail on another Mac where the user is the other email address, access is denied with the message:



(Personal details x'd out)

Since nothing has changed at this end, ever, and it's the POP server rejecting, it seemed to me that this bizarre problem was at their end, probably with their authentication server.

I entered into an email dialogue with their 'help' person, and sent him screen grabs.

Eventually he sent me this startling reply:



I'm not downloading unknown software to let an unknown person who does not have English as first language into my systems! Would you?

I don't know what to do other than what I have done, which is to make the User on all Macs the same person (me) which works. I've filtered all mail into that account so that nothing gets lost. But that is only a workaround and not an explanation or fix.

Thanks

I've run into a similar problem with Apple Mail, wherein all three POP accounts on my only Mac have begun returning the same message you're seeing.

Neither I nor my ISP was able to figure out what was wrong, but running the 10.6.8 Combo Updater seems to have been the appropriate corrective measure. (Deleting and restoring passwords from/to my keychain didn't help.)

Remember that running the Combo will revert your Safari to an earlier version than the one you're now running, which Software Update will not tell you, so you'll need to update it (as well as re-install whatever SU says you need ).

I've allowed techs from TRUSTED organizations to access my Mac, as was requested of you, with no issues, and it can be quite helpful. (The software I've run has allowed me to watch everything the tech was doing, in real time, to ensure that nothing untoward was going on.)

I've tried that now. It was a very long download (over half an hour) and an even longer instal (nearly an hour). I immediately tried Get Mail. It didn't work.

Sorry to hear that; it's why I said "seems to have been". (I remember the Combo both seeming to have worked on the first try and also needing to have been repeated, so I've never really been certain that it was the fix.)

All I can say now is that the issue finally disappeared and never recurred, so it may, in fact, have been some sort of ISP glitch.

Maybe just forget about it for a while, stick to your workaround, and give it a chance to go away on its own.

Hi Artie again,

Since I last posted, I have been very busy on three different Macs. This one which I'm typing on is mine and does not have that Mail problem.

The other two are over there, on the other side of the office. They both have the aforedescribed Mail problem.

I've been learning about Connection Doctor and Activity Monitor. On those two Macs, they both yield this:

-ERR[AUTH] Authentication failed.

That message is coming back from the ISP. In my opinion.

On my Mac however, Connection Doctor shows "me" connecting straight through before you can even blink.

There is something very strange indeed here. I have therefore set those two Macs' Mail Preferences to use the username of (me), the one which works.

Additionally, looking around the internet, I see dozens and dozens of people complaining of the exact same issue!

Sigh.

This is no help but I thought the Mail "password" problem was well-known. It crops up every once in a while, and the best thing to do is let it go, it usually fixes itself within a few hours. Or if you want to feel like you've done something, log out or restart and see what you get. and then wait a few hours for it to sort itself out…

It's been going on now for at least two weeks, with multiple restarts and retyping password combined with multiple days of ignoring it.

Update (in case this helps anyone else).

Another techie has appeared on the ISP's support desk. (Presumably having read all the emails between me and his colleague which resolved nothing) he showed me with screen-grabs how to re-set my password/s on their servers using C-Panel.

I then re-set the password/s at this end using Mail Preferences.

A minute or two later, functionality is finally resumed. Good!

I have thanked him, but could not resist asking why his colleague last week and the week before did not go down that trail?

This also proves IMO that my surmise was correct: our password/s were not getting through to their servers correctly.

I've had that problem too in the past, and occasionally still do for mysterious, ghost into the machine reasons.

Many years ago, when it was happening all the time, a woman at my ISP (ATT) fixed it. I had to change the incoming mail server and outgoing mail server addresses.

Yep. This is part a poor user interface in Mail, part Internet problem.

If Mail can't make contact with a mail server for almost any reason, from the server not responding to any of a number of other problems, it pops up the "enter password" dialog. This falsely gives the user the notion that the problem is a bad password even when it's not. Instead, Mail should pop up a dialog saying what the actual problem is...but no, it asks for the password again.

Ah ha. Same problem, appears to be losing passwords, was making me nervous.