Mail constantly asks me to re-enter my password

[mac2mac]

I have this problem on mail in leopard it will pop up and ask for me to re-enter my password every day but when it does it doesn't stop so i have to click cancel and remember to click "get mail" later on as it stops checking every 5 mins because it takes the account offline when i click cancel.
If i click "get mail" later on it will work again for a while and then maybe 2 hours later it will pop up again asking for my password agian.

A few things to note:
My password and the server name are all correct because it does download the mail when it wants too,
It can't be yahoo's servers this has been going on for like 3 months now and it didn't happen in tiger.

Ive tried the following and non of them have worked:
Repairing the keychain,
Deleting the password from the keychain and re-entering the password in mail.

Does anyone have a solution to this?

 

[siurpeeman]

do you also have an iPhone that accesses the same account? I can't explain it exactly, but it seems as though yahoo doesn't allow two devices to access the same account at the same time or within a relatively short period of time of each other.

 

[mac2mac]

do you also have an iPhone that accesses the same account? I can't explain it exactly, but it seems as though yahoo doesn't allow two devices to access the same account at the same time or within a relatively short period of time of each other.

Yeah i have i guess that's why.
Yahoo really need to get that fixed!

 

[skybolt]

Perhaps you have yoru setting for frequency of gathering mail set too short. If you ask it to collect mail too frequently, it will ask for your password. Try lengthening the time between mail collection.

 

[nparmelee]

I see this every now and then, even before I got my iPhone, but I also saw it on Outlook on my old PC. I think its a Yahoo issue where they just timeout or have an issue every so often. Some days it happens more than others.

 

[erikistired]

i had that problem after 10.5.1 released, i just reinstalled it and everything was fine again.

 

[decksnap]

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know the solution for when keychain keeps asking for the password? I've seen this crop up on a few systems over the years.

 

[John T]

I had the same problem some time ago. The problem was eventually traced to my ISP (work was being carried out at my local exchange). If one coincidentally instals new software, it is natural to blame that - but, in my experience, this is not necessarily so.

 

[Ish]

I have the same problem, only the frequency is different. Mine'll go for quite a while perfectly okay, then I have a period when it keeps asking for the password (always for the same account). For me, this has been there through Tiger into Leopard and maybe before.

Don't know what causes it though, sorry, or even if it's just one cause, though there have been threads about it over the years so you might find something there.

 

[mac2mac]

Perhaps you have yoru setting for frequency of gathering mail set too short. If you ask it to collect mail too frequently, it will ask for your password. Try lengthening the time between mail collection.

Mail on my mac was set to check every 5 mins ive now set it to every 30 mins and it still asks for the password. If i switch my iphone off though it doesnt.

 

[illegalprelude]

ok wow, glad im not the only one with this problem. except I have 4 different yahoo accounts hooked up so it gets super annoying cause they all do it.

 

[Dimwhit]

Mail on my mac was set to check every 5 mins ive now set it to every 30 mins and it still asks for the password. If i switch my iphone off though it doesnt.

How often does your iPhone check for mail?

Working off what skybolt said, most mail servers have a max POP connections setting. Mine, for example, is set at 60 connections per hour. For the whole domain. That means if, between everyone in my office, we are checking for new mail more than 60 times in an hour, we start getting that password error, and it takes an hour to clear up. My guess is that Yahoo is doing something similar, but on a per account basis.

 

[mr.light]

Mail on my mac was set to check every 5 mins ive now set it to every 30 mins and it still asks for the password. If i switch my iphone off though it doesnt.

Interesting. I have the same problem with mail using Tiger. I was inclined to ignore it up till now as it is only a very minor inconvenience for me. Once I read this thread I started to look at it more carefully. I have three computers on my network. All access the same mail accounts, two of them, (imac and iBook) access the same Yahoo account. It seems that when the iBook is active the iMac gets the password prompt. Maybe it is a problem with Yahoo.

 

[mac2mac]

Ive just found out if you set up yahoo on the iphone (dont sync the account using itunes) all the advanced settings are totally different it looks as if its using IMAP and it uses Push Mail so it sends mail straight to the phone so there is no check mail every x seconds option.

Lets hope this fixes the password problem in mail!

 

[mac2mac]

Yes setting up yahoo on the iphone works mail has not asked me for my password for ages!

 

[galleryguy]

Same Issues

I'm having these same issues on my iMac with all of my POP accounts (all Comcast) and my mother is having the same issue on her iMac. We've not changed anything in our settings and we do not have iPhone or Yahoo accounts. I think this is a recent Leopard issue. A fix, PLEASE, APPLE?

 

[iknowyourider]

I'm having these same issues on my iMac with all of my POP accounts (all Comcast) and my mother is having the same issue on her iMac. We've not changed anything in our settings and we do not have iPhone or Yahoo accounts. I think this is a recent Leopard issue. A fix, PLEASE, APPLE?

This is basicly my same problem. It was every so often but right now it's every minute. Help.