With OAuth2 Thunderbird doesn't remember your actual account password but only an authentication token. That token has to be renewed every once in a while. Only then you'll be prompted for the account password again. In order to protect any passwords and Oauth2 tokens Thunderbird has remembered it's recommended to set a master password (now called primary password). http://kb.mozillazine.org/Master_password

Except... I don't want TB to remember my normal passwords forever (that's the point of never ticking "use Password Manager for that password"), just during the time TB is running. How come there was never any problem before I had OAuth2 tokens but now it screws with normal passwords? I'm not fond of having any of my passwords stored anywhere but my brain, encryption or not.

Thank you all the same!

Perhaps you do not understand.... Your passwords are not remembered, your authentication token is. That is how oAth works. If you have issue with how oAuth works you best take that up with your mail provider that requires it's use. There is exactly nothing anyone involved with Thunderbird can do about the requirement you use it and remembering the token is a part of the oAth standard, you don;t get to tell the application to not remember it.

Te oAth standard is described here https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749 and in it's updates. Be warned it is a complex protocol and way over my head, so while I can point you to the document I can not explain it.

Not the point. The point is, ever since I switched to OAuth2 for my Yahoo! accounts, TB doesn't seem to remember my HOTMAIL "normal passwords" once I've input them at the beginning of the session. It keeps disconnecting from these Hotmail accounts and not retrieving my mail after some time. (told you it was complicated)

What doesn't make sense, is how switching to OAuth2 for my Yahoo! accounts could interfere with Hotmail normal passwords. They're all different accounts with different passwords, the only thing they have in common is that I read the accounts with TB.

What I want to know is how to stop TB from "being disconnected" from my Hotmail accounts once I input my passwords when I open TB (without storing my Hotmail passwords in Passwords Manager or using a Master Password).

Clear enough?

Thanks for the help!

TB doesn't seem to remember my HOTMAIL "normal passwords" once I've input them at the beginning of the session.

Your Hotmail account has got nothing to do with OAuth2 for your Yahoo account. The behavior you observer is exactly what's expected. Thunderbird will prompt you for the account password when needed, i.e. when the server requests a password. To avoid having to type the password again and again Thunderbird offers you to remember the password. There is no password caching per session without Thunderbird remembering the password.

It keeps disconnecting from these Hotmail accounts and not retrieving my mail after some time.

There is no 'disconnecting'. Also, you don't logout from your email account when using Thunderbird. You just close it when you're done.

What doesn't make sense, is how switching to OAuth2 for my Yahoo! accounts could interfere with Hotmail normal passwords.

There is no interference.

What I want to know is how to stop TB from "being disconnected" from my Hotmail accounts once I input my passwords when I open TB (without storing my Hotmail passwords in Passwords Manager or using a Master Password).

See above.

Your Hotmail account has got nothing to do with OAuth2 for your Yahoo account.

There is no interference.

Except there IS. I don't get how but there is. If I go back to "Normal password" on my Yahoo! accounts (which, well, won't let me log in but at least TB registers the change), then there is no problem with my Hotmail account passwords. Same goes if I delete my Yahoo! accounts completely from TB. On opening TB, I get the inputbox asking for my Hotmail passwords, and then TB is linked to my account the whole time it's open. I close TB, the connection is broken, then I open it again, it asks for the passwords, and I'm good to go until I close TB. And so on and so forth (normal behavior).

There is no 'disconnecting'. Also, you don't logout from your email account when using Thunderbird. You just close it when you're done.

I don't know how else to call it. I open TB, it asks for my Hotmail password (normal so far), then it works fine until it doesn't, a few minutes later, it just stops retrieving any mail, and if I want to get into my mailbox, I'm prompted to input my password again (and again a few minutes later, and again a few minutes later).

Look, I get that you know a lot more about OAuth2 than I do, I really do. And I'm humbled that you want to help me with it. But I've had TB for a few years now and I'm usually good at troubleshooting it (when it has minor issues). I tested the relation between my Yahoo! and my other accounts, which, again, doesn't make sense, but still seem to be interfering. With no OAuth2 in TB, all passwords are remembered/no connection is severed until i close TB. Introduce OAuth2, and then it's like the connections with "normal passwords" are severed all the time while TB is running. I don't know how to explain it.

Thanks for the help

Try clearing your Thunderbird cache in options. Just in case there is a corrupt file cached.

You might also want to look at making the time between check longer on your outlook accounts. I have a number connected and when I startup The web server refuses the login attempts after the first one or two. They have a singe request per 10 minutes policy, and I feel from my own experiences that they are enforcing that per IP address, not per account as I have no issues with connections being refused at other times. Only when they are all being polled one after the other at startup.

I just tried it (check for every new message every 20 minutes) and also waited more than 20 minutes between logging in my first account and the second. I might also be interesting to know that the email account provided by my ISP ("normal password") behaves like my Hotmail accounts. I also cleared the cache (I'm ashamed to say I hadn't thought about that before... One of the first things to do usually). Nothing's changed, the problem is still here.

For experiment's sake I duplicated my profile and removed my Yahoo! accounts on it to see how it would behave for longer than just a few hours. It's been a day now and not once has TB asked for my passwords again. I'm almost resigned to running two TB profiles at the same time, but it's not exactly efficient, when a single software is supposed to do both.

Thanks for the help!

Perhaps try deleting the password store and allow it to be recreated.

Exit Thunderbird Access Profile folder Delete old previously used files that are no longer used in most recent versions :

• cert8.db,
• key3.db
• secmod.db

The above files are no longer used and have been replaced by cert9.db, key4.db, and pkcs11.txt

Delete:

• key4.db,
• pkcs11.txt
• logins.json

Start thunderbird

Sorry, no dice (I found out I don't have the "logins.json" though). Deleted the files and even restarted my PC to be thorough. No change.

Honestly, I think it's a TB bug at this point. As I wrote in the very beginning, I tried setting up my accounts with a brand new profile, and it had the exact same problem (and I wasn't playing around with server times or anything else, the profile truly was new, and I just added my accounts one by one as you'd do the first time you use TB).

Thank you so much for your help and sorry for wasting your time

login.json is where passwords are stored, so as Thunderbird is storing no passwords, we are probably looking fr some other dumb password manager that is not doing what it says on the box. Something like a password vault in an anti virus product or software like NordPassZoho Vaultiolo Everykey ManageEngine Pro True Key Bitwarden SplashID Key Safe Password Boss Kaspersky Password Manager RememBearMyPassLock lastpass among a host of others.

I have outlook and yahoo and gmail accounts... All using oAuth because that is the preferred connection method of all three providers. I have zero issues with connection except for some timing issues with outlook when Thunderbird first starts up.

Given that oAuth password are always stored in the password manager to hold the access token supplied by the mail provider in oAuth and these connections also require cookies, I am guessing something you have set is the problem, not a bug. But you must save oAuth tokens.

I do have Kapersky but the Password Manager part of it hasn't been downloaded (I get reminders sometimes but as I don't want to use it, I don't do it). As far as I know, it's the only "password oriented" software I have on my computer (unless Win 10 has something stored in a dark corner?).

I wasn't aware outlook preferred OAuth2 (I'm guessing that's the case for the whole MS suite like hotmail, msn, and live?). I'm still using the "normal password" setting (considering it's the only one for which I don't have to remember to delete my passwords once I close TB).

I do know I have to save OAuth tokens (unfortunately), and they are (given my Y! accounts connections). But that's not the case for "normal passwords" (ISP provided + hotmail accounts) that are usually remembered until I close TB when I choose to uncheck "Use PM to remember this password" (when there's no OAuth2-requiring account around apparently, considering my duplicate profile without the Y! accounts is working just fine). I still believe TB has trouble dealing with both types of authentications in the same profile (I unfortunately can't check on another PC with another configuration to see whether it's external to TB).

Thanks for the help!

I still believe TB has trouble dealing with both types of authentications in the same profile

I do have a mix of accounts with OAuth2 authentication, and 'Normal password' authentication, and I do have no problems at all with this.

Thanks for the info! Did you set your "Normal passwords" to be remembered by Password Manager in TB?

I'm at loss then...

Did you set your "Normal passwords" to be remembered by Password Manager in TB?

Yes, I did.

Ah, there's the difference. I didn't (because I don't want to).

There's no problem when the "normal password" is remembered by PM. But my goal is not to have those "normal passwords" remembered by TB, so that these accounts are not "connected" automatically when I reopen TB (which, again, stopped working when I switched Y! to OAuth2 on my original profile, but does work on my duplicate profile without the Y! accounts).

I don't think there's a solution to my problem here. I'll keep my two profiles until there's an option or an add-on that automatically deletes all passwords on closing (without using a Master Password either, because I'm a pain like that).

Thank you so much for your help!