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
    2015-07-08T15:26:56+00:00

    I'm seeing what I think is the issue in Keychain on the Mac.  I'm running all relevant latest versions (Mac 10.10.4, Outlook 15.11.1).  It seems it may be a simple error of how the keychain entry is being created when password is entered.  I'm finding that Outlook is insisting on appending the server address to any entry in the username field.  I'm betting that this issue is related to Exchange servers with different access domains to the email address domain.

    In our current setup, we access the exchange server at owa.xxx.xxx, but our email addresses are ******@xxx.xxx   The keychain entry that is being created:

    ******@xxx.xxx@owa.xxx.xxx

    Odd, right?

    If I enter my username only, then I get a keychain entry of ******@owa.xxx.xxx - still wrong for my server.

    If I enter domain\username, I get Keychain entry of ******@owa.xxx.xxx - still wrong, but find it interesting that the domain is removed entirely.

    This is quite simply an Outlook writing to keychain issue and it's desire to use the domain in the server entry of the Account settings rather than the user entry in the password dialog box.  Not sure why they would program it this way, but it is creating hassle in Keychain that I can't seem to fix.  It continue to overwrite anything I try to fix in Keychain as a possible work around.  Can anyone else try?   Keychain entry is "Exchange".

    Note: this is only about Exchange servers, not gmail or other issues.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-06T18:02:57+00:00

    Same issue here. I just downgraded to 5.8 and now its working properly. Here's to hoping for a permanent fix. I hope all these bugs are worked out when the final version of Outlook for Mac 2016 hits "in the second half of 2015".

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-06T16:15:51+00:00

    It is reassuring it isn't me

    This version is appallingly bad: regular crashes and this password glitch.

    VERY ANNOYING

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-02T09:23:17+00:00

    Thanks Vijay. I downloaded Outlook 15.8 via https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45915 and bingo. The bug is gone and I can access My Exchange Server without the password problem that has been plaguing me since the 15.9 update.

    I'm logging to the server using DOMAIN\login and password. So clearly something changed since Outlook 15.9 and is causing the repeated password problem.

    P.S. : I first trashed Outlook 15.11 before installing 15.8.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-06-26T16:40:47+00:00

    15.8 Should work. Here is the link to download that. Before you install 15.8 pl uninstall 15.11.

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45915

    Thanks Vijay. 

    I'd be interested to have feedback here if people try 15.8 and it resolves the issue. 

    SeattleExpat

    For me, it used to work fine up until 15.10 (inclusive). Problems started with 15.11.0.

    I am using my email address instead of DOMAIN\username, and it seems to work. Weird.

    As you say, interested that such an obvious bug is making through a number of preview releases.

    I tried with DOMAIN\Username and email address nothing worked on 15.10,15.11 and 15.11.1.

    Only version I was able to make it work is 15.8.

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