New Guy here, strange MacMail issue

[conebeckham]

Hi, new guy with what appears to be a unique situation. Perhaps someone can clarify what's going on...

First off, I've got a Mac Mini with OSX 10.6.8 I think...latest edition of Snow Leopard. Had it for quite a while and love it.

I've had DSL until a recent switch to AT & T U Verse. My email address isn't changed. After the switch, I noticed some trouble, went to the ATT help pages, changed my settings to inbound./outbound.att.net.....etc.....only to discover, via phone support and a chat support, that I should have left them alone. So.......changed them back to the original sbcglobal.net ID and pop/smtp settings.

Had issues with the recurring pop-up password request......repaired keychains, even deleted some, re-set them, and actually deleted account and then re-created it again, and had to back up via Time Machine "library" files and "Library preferences" to get my old e-mails back.....triple-checked all the settings under preferences, including SSL, proper port numbers, etc., for the sbcglobal.net address.

After all of this, and several hours with customer service at ATT, I was able to send and receive msgs. intermittently via MacMail.....it will work for a stretch, and then I will get the "triangle" next to Inbox in the left-hand column, and the error msg. that it couldn't connect to the server. I'm told it's likely an Apple problem, because I can access e-mail via the web-based page. Ok.....??

What I've discovered, by accident, is that if I log in via my browser to te web mail, the msgs. will load in MacMail. This will "fix" for hours....but, even if I stay logged in, after an extended period of inactivity, I have to close/quit mail, reopen the browser, log out, log back in...and then restart MacMail.

Does anyone think this is an ATT issue, and not a Mac issue? Any idea why it would do this??

 

[Moof1904]

I had what sounds like your same problem. When I switched to uVerse, my mail app would all the time pop up the "provide password" dialog, only to reappear a few days later. It was maddening. I worked with ATT and escalated this until I was working directly with one of their very saavy people for weeks on it. Nothing seemed to fix the problem.

Finally, inspiration hit and I decided that there was no way to deal with ATT's crappy SMPT servers and I switched all my email accounts to use the SMTP servers on my hosted domain (I own my own domain derived from the family name and host it with a web hosting company).

The moment I switched off of ATT's SMTP servers and started sending my mail through my hosting company's servers, the problem disappeared and hasn't returned in more than three years.

 

[conebeckham]

So, you're saying it's an ATT problem, and not a server problem?

 

[robvee1967]

Did you ever get an answer? I'm running outlook 2011 with att.net email and it does not work.

Let me know if you had any luck, and if you don't mind, let me know what your settings are for the incoming and outgoing.. Thanks.