Mac Mail keeps requesting password

[bmac89]

Hello,

Just the past few days mac mail has been requesting a password regularly - sometimes multiple times a day.

I am not new to mac and have not had any problems until now. The issue is occurring on other email accounts, even on different usernames of the same computer.

It says the server has rejected the password - however the password is correct and when I re-enter the password (and tick save to keychain) it works fine for a short while and then it happens all over again.

I am running Snow Leopard (10.6.8).

Many thanks

 

[satcomer]

It sounds as if you haven't been paying attention. After the celebrity iCloud password forced hack Apple quietly updated iCloud password 3 times password. It kind of messed up already established iCloud accounts. The simple fix was to log into the Apple site My Apple ID and changing your iCloud password then changing the password on a Setting in your Mac and the problem goes away.

 

[SD-B]

Not sure if this is related but i am with Rogers in Toronto which is the largest network in Canada, and the most hated.

That said, for YEARS now every once in a while i get the same windows that pop up and usually i just have to refill the password and it works again.
But every so often it won't and it will act as if I have entered the worn password even though i know I haven't.
I wait a few mins and it will take it.

Ive noticed that this happens ESPECIALLY if I have two email addressees from Rogers itself in my accounts.
For some reason I can only run one Rogers address although technically I am entitled to 5 or 7.
Naturally I can also only use one @me.com one too, not both mine and the hubby's

Yet I can run several gmail addresses though with imap on the same computer

I have been told numerous times that its a fault with in Rogers and I have basically long ago accepted it.

Fortunately I run 2 MacBooks on my desk at once and my main emails come through to it and a couple to the other.
Its the only way i seem able to make it work.

I am not sure why I can't run 2 Rogers email addresses though this way but it seems to be wide spread, the belief that its a problem with Rogers themselves but I can't say for sure myself as i am only repeating some who have claimed this, over and over through the years.

 

[bmac89]

It sounds as if you haven't been paying attention. After the celebrity iCloud password forced hack Apple quietly updated iCloud password 3 times password. It kind of messed up already established iCloud accounts. The simple fix was to log into the Apple site My Apple ID and changing your iCloud password then changing the password on a Setting in your Mac and the problem goes away.

Actually I don't have any ICloud / Apple account connected to this computer.

 

[BrianBaughn]

If it's an IMAP or Exchange account you can do this:

Delete the associated Outgoing Mail Servers (from the SMTP server list).
Delete the account.
Delete the associated Keychain entries.
Set up the account again.

If you don't understand this feel free to ask before undertaking.

 

[bmac89]

If it's an IMAP or Exchange account you can do this:

Delete the associated Outgoing Mail Servers (from the SMTP server list).
Delete the account.
Delete the associated Keychain entries.
Set up the account again.

If you don't understand this feel free to ask before undertaking.

Thankyou for your helpful response. I will go ahead and try this and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

 

[bmac89]

If it's an IMAP or Exchange account you can do this:

Delete the associated Outgoing Mail Servers (from the SMTP server list).
Delete the account.
Delete the associated Keychain entries.
Set up the account again.

If you don't understand this feel free to ask before undertaking.

I did the above and re-setup the mac mail accounts. It would seem it resolved the issue for a few days. However today it has started doing it again and repeatedly asking for password because the server rejected it.

 

[KLinPA]

I believe you stated the computer asks for user name/password on occasion. Sounds like you need Keychain First Aid - something is not right where your passwords are stored.

To check keychains for problems using Keychain First Aid:

Open Keychain Access, located in the Utilites folder in the Applications folder.

Choose Keychain Access > Keychain First Aid.

Enter your user name and password.

Select Repair and click Start. Any problems found will be displayed and fixed.

I don't bother with verifying. If there is something to fix it will do so and if not, nothing happens.

 

[bmac89]

I believe you stated the computer asks for user name/password on occasion. Sounds like you need Keychain First Aid - something is not right where your passwords are stored.

To check keychains for problems using Keychain First Aid:

Open Keychain Access, located in the Utilites folder in the Applications folder.

Choose Keychain Access > Keychain First Aid.

Enter your user name and password.

Select Repair and click Start. Any problems found will be displayed and fixed.

I don't bother with verifying. If there is something to fix it will do so and if not, nothing happens.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did the keychain First Aid repair and the only issue present was a duplicate imap server.

Mac mail is still asking for password repeatedly.

 

[bmac89]

Thanks for the suggestion. I did the keychain First Aid repair and the only issue present was a duplicate imap server.

Mac mail is still asking for password repeatedly.

This issue is getting beyond ridiculous - the request for password is multiple times a day and often mulitple times within half an hour.

I want to continue using mac mail but if I can't find a solution soon it seems I will have to resort to a clean install - which I really do not want to be doing at this stage!

It seems rather absurd to require a clean install just to get mac mail to behave!

 

[KLinPA]

This is Apple's Mail troubleshooting article http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS3276 I would work through this first then....

Who is your ESP? Have you tried logging into your email providers webmail - go to the website to check your email there? Sometimes just by logging in it clears any issues allowing Mac Mail to connect with the server. Other times ESP's require an authentication of some sort before Mac mail will work correctly. A lot of times email providers will change their settings or what you need to do and not tell their customers. Next thing you know you're having an problem.

Before you through a clean install, try setting up a temporary user and add the mail account there. If it works without issues, something in one of your user preferences could be the issue. Here I would defer to BrianBaughn or another person to suggest which one to pull. I don't like to mess around with them too much and I wouldn't want to tell you to pull the wrong one.

Another thing you could try is setting up a brand-new email account from a different provider just to make sure we narrow down whether it's the account or the app itself having the problem.

If you notice other apps/items preferences are not sticking, you may want to consider checking the permissions on your home folder as well.

 

[Drewski]

My iMac has acted similarly for quite some time. So long, in fact, that I'm used to it. I make sure to stay on top of maintenance like deleting trash and old mail, repairing permissions, disk check, etc. nevertheless, mail will seemingly randomly require reentering passwords for various accounts, most frequently MS free email accounts. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it; the password request pops up multiple times per day (or once) for multiple accounts (or one.)

My gmail accounts are managed through thunderbird and have no such issues.

 

[bmac89]

This is Apple's Mail troubleshooting article http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS3276 I would work through this first then....

Who is your ESP? Have you tried logging into your email providers webmail - go to the website to check your email there? Sometimes just by logging in it clears any issues allowing Mac Mail to connect with the server. Other times ESP's require an authentication of some sort before Mac mail will work correctly. A lot of times email providers will change their settings or what you need to do and not tell their customers. Next thing you know you're having an problem.

Before you through a clean install, try setting up a temporary user and add the mail account there. If it works without issues, something in one of your user preferences could be the issue. Here I would defer to BrianBaughn or another person to suggest which one to pull. I don't like to mess around with them too much and I wouldn't want to tell you to pull the wrong one.

Another thing you could try is setting up a brand-new email account from a different provider just to make sure we narrow down whether it's the account or the app itself having the problem.

If you notice other apps/items preferences are not sticking, you may want to consider checking the permissions on your home folder as well.

Thanks again for your helpful response.

ESP: Hotmail and multiple AOL Accounts across multiple different computer usernames. The problem is not unique to 1 computer user or 1 email account.

I have accessed webmail and all works. It has not asked for any authentication for a very long time.

When I enter the password for mac mail it accepts it... until the next time it pops up saying password rejected.

Sometimes I just force quit mail and reopen it instead of entering password and that works too.

So the password and server appear to be fine - it seems to be an issue with mac mail.

As well as the keychain first aid, I have deleted and re-setup email account, deleted all keychain passwords related to the mail accounts and then re-entered password and saved to keychain again.

I will try setting up a brand new user and email account and see how that goes - but I'm not sure it will be any different.

Thanks again

----------

My iMac has acted similarly for quite some time. So long, in fact, that I'm used to it. I make sure to stay on top of maintenance like deleting trash and old mail, repairing permissions, disk check, etc. nevertheless, mail will seemingly randomly require reentering passwords for various accounts, most frequently MS free email accounts. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it; the password request pops up multiple times per day (or once) for multiple accounts (or one.)

My gmail accounts are managed through thunderbird and have no such issues.

Out of interest what operating system are you using?
I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8

 

[Drewski]

Out of interest what operating system are you using?
I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8

I've only used Snow Leopard and Mavericks, same issue with both OS.

 

[RyanFog]

Hello,

Just the past few days mac mail has been requesting a password regularly - sometimes multiple times a day.

I am not new to mac and have not had any problems until now. The issue is occurring on other email accounts, even on different usernames of the same computer.

It says the server has rejected the password - however the password is correct and when I re-enter the password (and tick save to keychain) it works fine for a short while and then it happens all over again.

I am running Snow Leopard (10.6.8).

Many thanks

I was having the same issue with an Exchange server email account. I went into keychain and searched on all entries with our domain name. I found that there were probably 4 or 5 different records in keychain to login onto the domain or to connect to the Exchange server from the web, or imap, smtp, etc. Looking at the passwords a few of those were older/stale passwords although I had tried to correct them with the Mac Mail popup. Once I fixed all my passwords with the Keychain tool, not too surprisingly Mac Mail is happy again, as am I.

 

[satcomer]

Plus with Exchange accounts (especially older Exchange accounts and older Domains) that the Mac's Date& Time should be set to the Domain Time or you would run into Kerberos errors.

 

[bmac89]

I was having the same issue with an Exchange server email account. I went into keychain and searched on all entries with our domain name. I found that there were probably 4 or 5 different records in keychain to login onto the domain or to connect to the Exchange server from the web, or imap, smtp, etc. Looking at the passwords a few of those were older/stale passwords although I had tried to correct them with the Mac Mail popup. Once I fixed all my passwords with the Keychain tool, not too surprisingly Mac Mail is happy again, as am I.

I have already checked the keychain and deleted all entries relating to mail. This did not fix the issue. Luckily the problem isn't happening at present but the issue comes and goes... and when it comes nothing seems to resolve it.

 

[satcomer]

I have already checked the keychain and deleted all entries relating to mail. This did not fix the issue. Luckily the problem isn't happening at present but the issue comes and goes... and when it comes nothing seems to resolve it.

It seems like it might be a Kerberos issues. So maybe you should use a more reliable clock on the Exchange server than Rotherham Microsoft one. Then on your Mac use the IP of the server.

 

[bmac89]

It seems like it might be a Kerberos issues. So maybe you should use a more reliable clock on the Exchange server than Rotherham Microsoft one. Then on your Mac use the IP of the server.

I'm not using an Exchange or Microsoft account.

 

[satcomer]

I'm not using an Exchange or Microsoft account.

Then download the free application EtreCheck. It will print out a detailed report that will show you if a service or kept is out of date so you can delete the incompatible service, just reboot if you delete a service.