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Please Help! Mail/SBC/Keychain Insanity!

M

Moof1904

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 20, 2004
1,061
103
Over the past few weeks, Apple Mail has periodically been popping up a dialog that says "The POP server “pop.att.yahoo.com” rejected the password for user “xxx@sbcglobal.net” and asks me to enter the password again. If I click the "remember in keychain" checkbox and enter the password via the dialog box, the dialog box just returns with the same message. Quitting Mail and relaunching it fixes things until 1 to 10 hours later when it happens again.

Why does stupid SBC's server keep intermittently rejecting the password? I know it's the right password because it works for hours and sometimes days at a time. When I do try to input it again via the dialog box in Mail, why is it appearing that SBC rejects it and/or keychain won't retain it?

From my past experience, calling SBC/AT&T as a Mac user with any kind of problem is far less than useless. That would be my absolute last choice in solving this.

Any ideas?
 
I'm having a similar prolem with swbell.net and Apple Mail. It keeps requesting a password even though I have said to keep it in the keychain; in my case however it seems to accept what I type, at least for a while. I have been using web mail, and only experimenting with both Apple Mail and Entourage (the latter doesn't give me this problem). I am looking into IMAP alternatives anyway, so it hasn't bothered me (yet).
 
I feel somewhat reassured that maybe this is a SBC server issue and not my setup. Of course, that reassurance is hollow, because if it is a SBC problem, the chances of them fixing it are rather slight.
 
Some progress, maybe...

I was tempted to nuke the entire Keychain on my Mac and start again, thinking it was a corrupted keychain (even though the Keychain First Aid found nothing wrong). However, after opening the keychain and seeing all the useful stuff in there, I decided not to delete the entire keychain. Instead, I deleted every entry that had anything to do with AT&T or SBC (there were some old entries from old passwords and such).

I may have had some limited success or it may be coincidence: after deleting those entries 20 hours ago, Mail has given me the rejected password dialog only twice, in contrast to a nearly hourly occurrence beforehand.

If the problem is entirely SBC/AT&T's, then this reduction in frequency may just be coincidence.

If it continues, I'll create a new account and set up Mail to pop just the SBC account and see if that does anything.

How common is this? Any other SBC/AT&T Mac users out there who are seeing this (besides danny_w, that is)?
 
Moof1904 said:
If the problem is entirely SBC/AT&T's, then this reduction in frequency may just be coincidence.
Click to expand...

The problem is entirely on AT&T's side. I have had SBC's (now ATT) Yahoo internet deal for years now, and within the last week or so, AT&T's mail server was glacially slow when Mail tried to retrieve messages, or just plain borked, thus the pop-up from Mail about the password. The problem wasn't the password, Mail simply couldn't connect with AT&T's god-awful mail server.

AT&T's mail server problem was cross platform and affected all email client software. They may have it fixed, over the last 24 hours, things have been running smoothly without interruption, at least on my system.

See this rather large thread over at Broadband Reports.
 
Moof1904 said:
How common is this? Any other SBC/AT&T Mac users out there who are seeing this (besides danny_w, that is)?
Click to expand...

I have had the same problem with my sbcglobal.net email. The password in the keychain is valid since I copy and paste it after getting the 'rejected' message and it works for awhile. I don't remember if I've seen it yet today so maybe they did fix it.

I tried setting the 'check mail' time to 5 minutes still had the problem.
 
Additional information

Last night I created a new account on my Mac and set up Mail to pop only that SBC account. I then deleted and created a new keychain. I set the check mail interval to one minute and went to bed.

When I awoke this morning, the password query dialog was sitting there waiting for me.

Seeing the Broadband thread posted about above and having never seen this behavior with any other ISP, I'm pretty much convinced that this is a SBC/AT&T problem.

Yippy.
 
Moof1904 said:
Seeing the Broadband thread posted about above and having never seen this behavior with any other ISP, I'm pretty much convinced that this is a SBC/AT&T problem.

Yippy.
Click to expand...

I don't think I had the issue at all sunday or yesterday but it's happening again this morning.
 
It has been happening to me as well. Has anyone found a solution?

My work pop account works with no problems just sbc/att.

This is pretty frustrating as it happens quite frequently. It works after awhile then it will happen again.
 
After updating to Leapord that issue [keychain issue] seems to have been solved. Now however, i keep getting a Certificate Window, asking me if i trust, the Server in which AT&T uses [or maybe its SBC/Yahoo DSL Servers?].

I just tell it to trust the server, since all the information in the Certificate Details looks legit.
 
This is what I found out recently. If I have two programs checking for email is when I receive the message. So, if Mail is open on my MacBook Pro and my iPod Touch is on and actively checking for mail as well.

If I turn off the iPod Touch and just use the Mail app on MacBook Pro there is no problem.

Wade
 
The problem is Mac Mail

I keep hearing people blame this problem on the server side...I've had the problem since buying my Mac in September 07, and I doubt that it is entirely a server problem.

The reason? I've had a POP account with mail.com for years, and I never have a password rejection issue with any other mail client. Outlook express, Exchange, etc. all work without flaws.

Since Mail is the only client that gives me an issue, I think Mac Mail is the problem.

Unfortunately Apple support is unable to solve the problem.:mad:
 
you might be right, but it seems odd that i have two other email accounts with different carriers, and neither of them have this issue.

my yahoo/att account is the only one with the issue. i should point out that my other two accounts are: gmail using POP3, and my work email is IMAP.
 
I pretty much solved the problem, I think...

The problem for me is that AT&T's servers require all email addresses used with their servers be "authenticated" and that's not just by pop-ing the with a password authenticated email client. What they're looking for is actually logging in to the AT&T/SWB web site and going through an authentication process for each email address used.

From AT&T:

If you have received this error message, you will continue to receive it for emails sent with a non-verified address until you verify your Yahoo! email address or any other non AT&T email addresses (e.g., name@company.com, name@college.com, name@yahoo.com, etc.). Verification instructions are available on the AT&T Help site http://helpme.att.net/article.php?item=11646.
 
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