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
    2016-07-12T14:45:33+00:00

    Same issue here for every single update after 15.17. I went as far as to restore my Macbook back to April 2016 before this ever happened, HOPING that was the issue. Nope; still happens.

    Recently when I VPN into my work environment I get the typical random authentication pop-up, only this time it will NOT accept it and immediately locks me out of every application associated with my AD account, even attempting to connect to Outlook webmail without VPN. After multiple calls to my corporate help desk, they persisted that I was not locked out. So I just decided to wait it out. Sure enough, after 15 minutes I am good again. This has been going on every day, all day, randomly, causing me to lose a lot of productivity. Oddly this only happens with VPN. Otherwise it is just the repeated prompts to log in which will get me in for a while before the next prompt. However, my Note 5 never stops receiving email... 

    It's absolutely atrocious, that M$ would allow this to continue for as long as it has. You'd think that they would want Mac users to buy their software not run from it. I have attempted every work-around that could be found through a web search and none have stopped it from happening... The only resolution for me was going back to 15.17. I have no issues whatsoever now, but lack all of the updated security and other functional enhancements!

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  2. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2016-07-17T14:28:40+00:00

    15.17 is considerably out of date.

    The first thing to do is install the recent updates. Make sure your Mac has a working internet connection, then:

    Update Mac OS X. Open the App store and click on the Updates button. Install the updates.

    After, in any Office application go to the Help menu and choose Check for Updates to launch the AutoUpdate app. Let AutoUpdate install updates and then restart your Mac.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-07-17T14:50:21+00:00

    Why would he do that if the issue still exists on the latest version? We're not having issues updating, we choose use an old version because they actually work.

    --

    I've actually found that 15.19.1 works great - no errors whatsoever. I tried the Insider Fast branch (15.25) and the issue is present on that. Looks like I'll be staying on 15.19.1 for a while...the constant Autoupdate prompt is annoying though.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-07-17T15:29:05+00:00

    15.17 was the only version that would not cause issues. I was in the fast update loop, but every update never resolved the constant prompts. So I just uninstalled it all and went back to the old version.

    I did end up resolving my issue this weekend, by completely erasing my Macbook and installing a fresh copy of OS X El Capitan. After that, I installed select applications from my backup. When I reinstalled Office, this time I stuck with the "domain\username" login and it actually took. This is the first time that had worked. Usually the Exchange server would kick back an error that it could not connect. So I took that as something in my system must have been corrupt which was resolved with a clean install of the OS. I am all good now. Sucks to have had to go that far, but it is all working as it should now. And a lot faster too ;)

    Thanks!

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  5. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2016-07-18T15:36:42+00:00

    I am glad you finally got the problem sorted out and that you shared the solution. 

    There are several different questions about this in the forums. If you feel up to being an exemplary citizen you might post the same information as answers to those questions.

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