Outlook for Mac 2016 - Repeated password prompts still an issue ...

Anonymous
2015-06-20T22:09:21+00:00

All-

As we know, one of the biggest bugs in Outlook for Mac 2016 is the ever-so-annoying repeated password prompt problem. This refers to the constant pop-ups that make it appear like Outlook is forgetting your password every few minutes, etc. The problem was much discussed during the Preview phase of Office for Mac 2016 but never corrected. I did some digging on the forums here and found other threads that covered this problem with slight variances, but the core issue is the same -- credentials are somehow not being stored properly or become corrupted during normal operation of the software. List of the relevant threads I found below. This list may not be comprehensive:

It seems odd that a major bug like this remained unresolved after the official release of Office for Mac 2016 ... and still hasn't been corrected! Per post responses on Microsoft's official Office Blog, they are looking into authentication issues with Exchange Server, but who knows what that means or how long that will take. Based on what I can gather:

  • Bug shows up in Outlook for Mac versions 15.9.x and up, therefore ...
  • Version 15.8 and earlier are not affected, but that is a super old preview version from 2015
  • Changing the way you present your credentials can sometimes help:

            e.g. username@DOMAIN vs. DOMAIN\username vs. username

  • Problems seem to affect Exchange Server authentication as well as IMAP or POP,
  • Deleting your account and setting up Outlook from scratch sometimes helps,
  • The issue seems to be intermittent, comes and goes.

A ticket submitted by forum member *Filip Herman* to Microsoft's technical support around early August 2015 indicated that Microsoft is aware of the problem and has a planned fix in progress. Obviously its been years since that. Others have submitted tickets to support since. Scroll to the end to read the most current progress.

I'd encourage everyone to mark this post, indicating that you "recommend this discussion." This thread has tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments, so its clearly not an isolated issue. Unfortunately, my company abandoned the use of Outlook for Mac 2016 some while back because of this issue, so I don't have an active platform to test on anymore. However, keep trading ideas here as needed.

Best of luck-

Seattle_Expat

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-14T03:11:27+00:00

    So now that I've downgraded to 15.8 Outlook is working properly, but now all of my other Office 2016 apps (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) are deactivated. When I re-activate the other Office apps, Outlook becomes deactivated and read only again. Its like only one or the other can be activated at once. Anyone else having this issue?

    The really weird part is when Outlook is activated, only about 50% of the time when I open my other Office 2016 apps they show as deactivated. Randomly, about half the time they open up fine with full functionality, and I think "great! the problem is fixed!" But then 30 minutes or so later when I open the app again it will show as deactivated.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T22:06:17+00:00

    In our environment we  also have multiple users who are experiencing the constant prompts for their outlook password. We are currently on version 15.11.2. I am also curious whether this issue is related solely to the Outlook client or if it is exchange related.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T21:40:36+00:00

    All-

    FYI, I reposted this discussion to the new, official Office for Mac 2016 category that's now available on this forum. I suspect that the older Office for Mac Preview and Office 365 (Outlook for Mac) categories will be deprecated soon. 

    Also, I posted a comment on the official Microsoft Office Blog about this problem. Encourage all to 'reply' to that posting or post a new comment of their own stating that this is still an ongoing issue being ignored by Microsoft.

    Cheers-

    Seattle Expat

    Just tried the Outlook 2016 [ 15.11.2] still the same issue. I don't know wether it is related to the Outlook Client or may be office 365 exchange account.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-10T13:11:45+00:00

    All-

    FYI, I reposted this discussion to the new, official Office for Mac 2016 category that's now available on this forum. I suspect that the older Office for Mac Preview and Office 365 (Outlook for Mac) categories will be deprecated soon. 

    Also, I posted a comment on the official Microsoft Office Blog about this problem. Encourage all to 'reply' to that posting or post a new comment of their own stating that this is still an ongoing issue being ignored by Microsoft.

    Cheers-

    Seattle Expat

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-07-08T22:28:47+00:00

    I'm still looking for a way to change the keychain credentials manually so that it becomes a viable entry for Outlook to use for authentication.  This could be viable workaround.

    Right.

    Was hoping there would some way to "lock" the KeyChain entry once created so that it was "ready only" thus preventing Outlook from writing out to it again. Not sure that feature exists -- just an idea.

    This reminds me of an earlier problem many of us had where the URL's and connections strings for Exchange servers would get over written by Outlook, in a sort of, "we know better than you about these things, user. Let us change that for you ... " sort of attitude. Finally had to find a couple of hack work arounds for issue that as well. 

    Let me know if you want me to test anything on this end.

    SeattleExpat

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