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
    2017-09-04T13:31:01+00:00

    I don't understand why email is such a hard and complicated matter in 2017 with Microsoft

    would leave Exchange/Outlook in a heartbeat and move everything to Google Cloud with Gmail, where you get rock solid service to let you just get work done in any system anywhere.

    Right now you are beta testing a product from 1997..

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-02T00:11:34+00:00

    Thank you for your creative suggestion.  I am not on gmail.  My semi solution is to use Apple mail and continue to work with MS for a solution.  We are in contact almost daily.  I send  screen shots and various logs for the techs to analyze.  I even copied suggestions from MS Community for them to try.  They try, but ns far no solution.  Puzzling!

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-01T23:57:50+00:00

    While this isn't a permanent solution it has saved my sanity... If you're getting repeated password prompts in Outlook and use Gmail and are 2 factor enforced you can make things a little less annoying.

    1. Create an app password for your gmail account

    https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en

    1. Enter the app password into Outlook
    2. Keep this app password in a password manager tool or something so you don't lose it
    3. When you get prompted for your email password from Outlook put in the app password and save to keychain.

    I still get prompted but don't get stuck in a loop where Outlook will not accept my password.

    This works for Outlook for Mac: v 15.33 (170409)

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-09-01T22:53:00+00:00

    MS techs have been working on this issue with my outlook on Mac since June 26th with no success.  Now I cannot send emails most of the time because it says my user name or password is inaccurate.  Other times I can.  Other problems have now developed.  I do not et notices for new emails like I use to.  Setting is correct.  For days, emails that were in outbox duplicated themselves about 30 times and delivered to the draft.  The outlook is unreliable. on Mac.

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-08-23T19:02:09+00:00

    Damn it....it has returned....grrr!!

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