Thunderbird won't connect to hotmail account
Until yesterday, Thunderbird connected perfectly to my hotmail account, but suddenly, it said that my password or email address wasn't correct. I tried going directly to Outlook and put in my password and had no trouble. Thunderbird is the only place where it will not connect, even though the information hasn't changed.
I have tried to find "Account Settings" on Thunderbird to see if it needs to reconfigure, but I can't find those in the menu under Tools as the directions say.
Chosen solution
Account settings are only under Tools when using the old Menu Bar that is hidden these days. The alt key or F10 should make the Menu Bar appear.
If using the new AppMenu button it is under options.
The easiest way to get there is to right click the account in the Folder Pane on the left side and select Settings.
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (5)
Chosen Solution
Account settings are only under Tools when using the old Menu Bar that is hidden these days. The alt key or F10 should make the Menu Bar appear.
If using the new AppMenu button it is under options.
The easiest way to get there is to right click the account in the Folder Pane on the left side and select Settings.
Seeing as hotmail is Microsoft product see if somewhere in its configs or more globally in your hotmail / live settings there is any app password timeout or errors with OAuth etc.
Also consider backing up your configs for that email account and then purging that account in tbird and re-initializing it, to rule out some old or now incompatible configuration ( backwards compatibility support dropped etc...)
Same problem with Outlook account. Error message says: Verzending van wachtwoord voor gebruiker b.b~~~~~~r@outlook.com is niet gelukt. Mailserver pop-mail.outlook.com antwoordde: Authentication failure: unknown user name or bad password. [Error="ProxyNotAuthenticated" AuthResult=0 Proxy=AMSPR04MB535.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com:1995:SSL] Changing passwords did not help; via the browser I can login, so the failure lies with Thunderbird. It has worked before, but after some update (version is now 45.1.1) this error appears.
Today (since outlook/hotmail seem to have totally re-designed their site) as Thunderbob (above) I can't access my hotmail email account with the following error : Sending of password for user *myaccount*@hotmail.com did not succeed. Mail server pop3.live.com responded: Authentication failure: unknown user name or bad password. [Error="ProxyNotAuthenticated" AuthResult=0 Proxy=AM2PR01MB0451.eurprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com:1995:SSL] Everything was fine until the apparent site change today.
But luckily I found a solution. It is NOT the fault of Thunderbird, but apparently while re-designing their hotmai/outlook mail site Microsoft chose also to reset certain parameters. In your hotmail/outlook account (web) go to settings (the "wheel" right above), click "options" and under Accounts go to POP and IMAP settings. Under POP select that apps and devices may use POP. After having done this everything should work normally. Excuse me for blaming Thunderbird !
Modified by Thunderbob