Outlook 2016 doesn't accept password or app password

A bit more luck for me. I could not connect to eas.outlook.com or m.outlook.com on my main phone in the last few days. I have tried many many times on my phone + 2 other Android devices, but no luck. These have stock Android 12, 13 and 14 environments. Every time I add it as Exchange account type at the OS's account screen, I would get "...cannot connect to server...contact your IT..." error. I repeatedly submit add and it would keep getting the error message.

About an hour ago, I was suddenly able to add the account back with no other changes, on all 3 devices after 2.5 days of attempts. Sync of emails/contacts/calendar all worked. Now, here comes the interesting part. In Android account entry for the added Exchange account, there is a "Server settings" section near the bottom. Under "Incoming settings" selection, your account related settings are all listed. At the very bottom, there is OS option called "Switch to modern auth". This appears to be conversion option without user retype the credentials. Once I click this, a browser session is launched, similar to normal OAuth login screen. I would error out at this point after multiple attempts. If I abandon this, the account remains working.

I then retry the same process with my work account. Initially manually adding it, so it would be Basic Auth, then I use the same "Switch to modern auth" and is able to successfully convert to Modern Auth. This show this conversion function works. This goes further to strengthen the argument that EAS with OAuth may not be supported or is not currently working correctly for consumer email accounts such as Hotmail.

Thanks a lot for checking.

Now we need an official answer from microsoft for this as it makes no sense to push the third party app developer to change to modern auth when it will not work for consumer accounts.

And in addition to this: If it is not possible to connect to outlook.com consumer account with modern auth and a protocol that supports Calendar, Contacts and E-Mail synching, I do not need a microsoft outlook.com account anymore, since this is the only thing I do with the account.

"Get a new office version" would not be such a big deal if

1. new version didn't have same issue as older ones

I have M365 Outlook installed at the moment and everything works fine. Which issue are you saying exists on this version?

Agree. Some guidance from MS on personal accounts vs. business accounts, and OAUTH, along with clarification on all this server "noise" would be helpful. Synching more than just email is very important. Calendar, contacts, tasks, notes etc. are important.

Frubbl,

Outlook.com offers EAS connections with OAuth. The best example that I know is Apple Mail App.

A good reference is this topic that documented basic auth deprecation for Exchange Online (M365 tenants), Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn. For those that have M365 tenants they already have to use OAuth for EAS.

To double check Apple Mail was EAS I was able to check Mobile Device connections in Outlook.com, Fix email sync issues or remove a device from your Outlook mailbox - Microsoft Support. I used the Edit option which showed EAS, but also Enable Logging also showed it in the logs, Mobile devices options on Outlook.com - Microsoft Support.

I'll share your feedback request for protocol table which support OAuth for Outlook.com. It would also be helpful if Outlook.com Mobile Device page would show the protocol that is connecting and if its OAuth or Basic Auth or if anything else.

My peers pointed out something that might be helpful. If you get prompted to sign in to Outlook.com when you add your account to an app then that is invoking OAuth/Modern Auth flow.