Outlook continually re-asking for password

Anonymous
2017-01-05T16:43:54+00:00

Hi there, 

Wonder if anyone can help - this issue is causing me considerable pain.

Essentially my mac outlook keeps asking for my password periodically:

Enter your account information for "XXXXXX"

User name: <My email address>

Password: <unpopulated>

<checkbox> Remember this password in my keychain

When I enter the password, and submit the form it asks me immediately for the same details again. Even if I select use keychain.

Then after two attempts, it shows me this message:

Mail could not be received at this time.

The server for account "<my name>" returned the error "Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password." Your username/password may be incorrect. Would you like to try re-entering your password?

No/Yes

If I click "Yes" it shows me the same dialogue again....and when I click "yes" again it disappears.

This process restarts every 15 minutes through my working day - but I do get emails sporadically. So its kinda disruptive!

Can anyone help?

Graham

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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Anonymous
2017-01-12T15:50:23+00:00

Hi All,

Thanks for your updates.

Firstly, I’m sorry that I may have misunderstood your different scenarios in the posts above. I have done more research and consulting about the issue and please check the different steps below:

@Graham, since you are using an Office 365 account, please double-confirm whether all the Office 365 related credentials are deleted on your Mac. (Although I understand you may have deleted the keychain folder earlier due to an irrelevant issue.) To check that, please refer to the steps below:

  1. Go to KeyChain Access.
  2. Search "Exchange" under Login --> All Items and delete everything.
  3. Search "Office" and delete everything.
  4. Search "ADAL" and delete everything.
  5. Launch Outlook.
  6. You will get the activation prompt and then If account is already added you will see the password prompt for app and ADAL again. Please do 2-Factor Authentication if asked to.

You can also let your colleague try the steps to see if the issue can be fixed.

@Tanner, since you are using a Mediacom account, I suppose you configured the account via IMAP in the Outlook for Mac client, right? Anyway, you may need to delete the Mediacom related credentials and the information in the thread that I shared above may not work for you. Please refer to these steps instead:

  1. Open Applications/Keychain Access
  2. On the left, select the Login Keychain
  3. On the left, select the Passwords category
  4. Find out and delete all the Mediacom related credentials.

Let me know how it works this time. Thanks for your time and cooperation.

Regards,

Sam

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-02-11T16:05:10+00:00

    Hi Graham,

    Do you still use version 15.29 (161209)? If yes, I suggest you install the latest updates and clear the keychain follow the steps Sam mentioned above.

    If the issue persists, please provide a screenshot of account settings as the following screenshot. As the screenshot contains your privacy, I have sent you a private message to collect it. Please click the link below to access your private message:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/privatemessages/list

    Thanks,

    Chris

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-02-10T16:29:07+00:00

    I'm afraid this did not work for me. Do you have another solution?

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-01-30T18:25:25+00:00

    Hi Tanner,

    If the issue re-occurs, you can try to delete the Mediacom related item in Passwords at first. If the issue can not be resolved, I suggest you delete all the related items in Keychain.

    Thanks,

    Chris

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-01-29T18:30:14+00:00

    Hey, Aaron! My current Outlook version is 15.30 (170107).

    Need a little more understanding about what I should delete. 

    In the past I deleted 1 Mediacom related item in "Login>Passwords". There are more Mediacom related items in "Login>All Items", and I have done nothing with them.

    Please advise if I should continue to focus on the 1 item under Passwords, or if I should also delete the additional items under All Items. Thanks!!

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