Have you asked go daddy what is wrong with their mail server?

I would do that but it works fine on other email clients.

Other actual email clients or using a browser and web mail?

Other actual email clients. I think it might have been something with the recent update. I think I might have solved my problem though. I changed ports for the IMAP server and it appears working correctly now.

That was going to be my next suggestion. Compare the server settings between the 2 clients.

Didn't work I had to change them back. Both clients have the same settings now. One works and the other does not. The problem appears to be intermittent. Right now it's working okay.

Intermittent problems are usually on the server side. You do know that your provider does not just have one server. If they have a server with problems in their server bank and that is the one that you connect to it will not work?

Okay, I will look into that. Thanks for your help.

I am also having the same problems, they started last week sometime. They are intermittent but affecting most of the people in the office except for the very few that use Outlook. I believe it is related to the recent thunderbird update, I have contacted Godaddy and they say there have been no issues with their servers.

I have this problem too. Started about a week ago. I have several email accounts with GoDaddy, and am having problems with the IMAP account only (2 email addresses). POP accounts across different computers are fine, all using Thunderbird 38.5.1 on OS X 10.11.2 and GoDaddy email.

I called GoDaddy and told them that my email program keeps asking me for a valid password, for account

name@domain.com@imap.secureserver.net

and right away the rep asked if I'm using an Apple product, and she said people had been calling in with that problem, and it's a Thunderbird and/or Apple Mail problem. However my phone, iOS 9.2, is retrieving IMAP email fine (same account that Thunderbird is having a problem with).

I still get the error whether I manually type in the password or use Thunderbird's password manager.

I don't know if the above is the correct format for an account login on GoDaddy's email server(s). If it's not, the format may be the source of the problem.

For what it's worth, I waited on the phone for the rep to run a diagnostic on my email, and the diagnostic passed top to bottom with no errors.

I pretty much update all software as soon as new versions are available. I don't remember any Apple updates that would affect email, but I'm not using Apple Mail anyway. I do remember updating Thunderbird recently.

The GoDaddy rep said to use webmail until Thunderbird/Apple Mail is fixed. Does this look like a problem in Thunderbird? If yes, is it an easy/quick fix, because the problem was introduced in the last Thunderbird update?

Update: I just got the "please enter a password" from Thunderbird again, and this time the message was

Enter your password for name@domain.com on smtpout@secureserver.net

Entering the password in this dialog works fine, but it doesn't above (imap.secureserver.net). So maybe the format above, with the email address concatenated with the server name and an @ symbol in the middle, is the problem.

Our business is also having this problem. Everyone in the office uses Thunderbird. Any GoDaddy accounts are having the same problems mentioned about when used with Thunderbird.

Accounts from other providers (gmail, network solutions) have no problems in Thunderbird.

To troubleshoot further, I added some of our GoDaddy accounts to other clients (Mail and Outlook). At the same time that the accounts are failing in Thunderbird, they load no problem in the other clients.

This is definitely a Thunderbird issue.

I've also spoken with GoDaddy support and I believe this is definitely a Thunderbird issue that appeared in a recent update. I see the same problem on all machines where Thunderbird has been recently updated but not on machines with older versions. The fact that it doesn't occur with any other email client seems to pretty firmly indict a recent Thunderbird update as the culprit.

ISSUE FIXED (well, workaround anyway)

I just downgraded from Thunderbird 38.5.1 to Thunderbird 38.5.0 and now everything works fine, suggesting that the problem was introduced in Thunderbird 38.5.1. If you want to do the same, you can get it here:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/38.5.0/

I'm using Mac, en-US.

The info below is for troubleshooting, in case anyone in Thunderbird development is reading this:

I downloaded the .dmg for 38.5.0 and installed it by dragging it to the Applications folder, overwriting the newer version. When I started 38.5.0 I got a dialog telling me that the Lightning plugin (whatever that is) is not compatible, and I clicked through that. Then I was able to download all email from both IMAP and POP accounts (I have multiple accounts of each type, from GoDaddy, and also some from elsewhere).

For further testing, I opened the Thunderbird password manager, and removed the stored passwords for the IMAP email addresses. Then I restarted Thunderbird and it asked me for the password for the email addresses associated with the IMAP account. The dialog asking for the password did have the format that I posted above -- that is, it asked me for a password for

name@domain.com@imap.secureserver.net

(sic) for each of the IMAP email addresses. When I supplied the password the authentication completed successfully and the email was downloaded. I checked for email again, this time storing the password in the password manager. Now when I open Thunderbird it does the authentication automatically and successfully and the email downloads normally.

This issue needs to be fixed in 38.5.1 of course, but I recommend users check the release notes to make sure IMAP authentication is fixed before upgrading from 38.5.0.

I do you keep Thunderbird from automatically updating to the new version after you have installed the older? I'm having a hard time finding where to turn that off.

Never mind, found it.

So far this workaround seems to be working for me as well.

Guys, I think this is probably just coincidence. The problem disappeared for me too, but I didn't downgrade. I'm still on 38.5.1 and yet the problem suddenly vanished on all my machines, so I suspect it was actually a GoDaddy problem and they fixed it. Why else would 38.5.1 suddenly start working again?

So I think downgrading to 38.5.0 just happened to coincide with GoDaddy fixing their problem at the same time, leading to the false appearance that 38.5.1 had a bug. Try upgrading to 38.5.1 and I think you'll find the problem is fixed.

Hey! What a coincidence. I tried updating to 38.5.1 and it works now.