re 1: based on your problem description I assume you're using an outlook.com mail account. The password you're using with web mail does not get accepted because Microsoft are moving to a new authentication method. Please go to the Account Settings in Thunderbird and change the authentication method for your outlook.com account to OAuth2. After that, please shutdown TB, wait a moment to allow any background service to exit and restart TB. It should then prompt you through a web-style login page to login to Microsoft and authorize Thunderbird for mail access.

re 2: united folders - do you mean the unified folder view on (IMAP) accounts or a global inbox in local folders for multiple POP3 accounts? Please advise.

Thanks JP, I've changed the authentication to OAuth2. Before I shut it down, I've been having similar problems about every 2 years or so. TB always says it's MS fault, but I don't recall them telling us how to get around it - till now - thank you.

2/ I mean the top INBOX above all the other folders - see image. It used to come up with a number (of messages) since last time - on all addresses. Now it dosn't

many thanks

JP:

1/I did as you said, but now get the message - see image.

I can't send or receive messages for this address (it's very important at the moment, as I'm going through legal paperwork) etc.

ToM

I am truly sorry because I gave you wrong advice - I was not aware that Thunderbird does not work with outlook.com and OAuth2 at present. The underlying issues have been identified and bug tickets have been created. But getting OAuth2 to work with outlook.com will take a while and be available only in a future version of Thunderbird. There is some time pressure for this to be fixed as Microsoft has announced some changes to their infrastructure for fall (September or so), but this won't help you today.

I hope we can get you back online quickly if you follow the following steps, I went through them myself a moment ago and it allowed me to connect, so hope it works for you as well: 1) Generate an app password on the Microsoft accounts page. This password will be used with TB to access IMAP and SMTP servers.

2) Go back to Thunderbird and switch the authentication method for the servers back to "Normal password" and enter the newly generated app password to connect. If this doesn't work with the imap-mail.office.com server, please also try outlook.office365.com, this seems to be the server preferred by Microsoft for outlook.com addresses (see here for details).

Please let me if you've been successful.

I managed to get this address working. I changed the password before altering the 0Auth2. When I changed it back to 'Normal password', it worked. The address in question is Hotmail. I have more Hotmail addresses and some Outlook addresses. 99% of the time, all works well. About every 24/36 months, I get similar messages on TB, and TB always pointed me to MS, but when I go on there, all is well. It seems that now and then, TB just forgets some details.

Any ideas about the Inbox question please ?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Since writing this, another address has stopped working. This time it is a Hotmail one. I'm just in the middle of changing the auth thing and back again, to see if that works again !!

Now a dozen of 'em kicked in,,,, just like every couple of years. I can't manage like this as half my addresses will be down.

I know i'm not the only one getting this anomaly. There must be a definitive answer ???