Thunderbird and outlook login problems
I'm having a problem between Thunderbird and Outlook that started in the last few weeks. I've been using T-Bird for decades. I have 5 e-mail accounts from various e-mail providers, all collected under t-bird, But recently the one account that connects to an outlook server has been generating password reject messages in bursts and then goes quiet, connecting regularly and pulling mail. I thought it might be from using obsolete domain names as microsoft has been pushing to get people on office365 domains. So I tried changing that one account to using an outlook.office365.com domain. That seemed to improve things for a few hours but actually not. The next day more of the same periodic bursts of password reject popups and than back to normalcy. So my questions are these:
1> What is the right set of server settings to achieve the same kind of generally error-free access to an e-mail address resolving to an outlook-based e-mail account (in this case an e-mail address at msn.com)? 2> How do you go about replacing the server settings in order to go thru discarding the old settings while preserving the e-mail filters you have uniquely assigned and reassigning them to the revised account settings? 3> I recall seeing some e-mail traffic from microsoft regarding their mucking around with their email domains but don't recall seeing anything recently that would indicate a recent significant change other than the push for office365 - which I don't use. Am I missing something that microsoft has done that should drive me to change this e-mail address to another e-mail server?
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I would suggest you look at the frequency of connections.
Historically Thunderbird approaches connecting to get mail as a sequential thing, so five accounts would be connected one after the other. Now it is a multi threaded thing where all five may attempt to connect at once.
I have no idea if this will help, but it might.
Stretch out the frequency of connection as far as you feel you can. Stagger the frequency 15 minutes for one account 17 for another so they all do not click over at the same time. Keep in mind that hotmail used to refuse connections that arrived at less than 15 minute frequency. so do not set account to a lesser time.
If you are using IMAP accounts try changing the connections in server settings > advance to 1 or 2. It will slow the download, but it might reduce the errors as well.
If you are not using oauth authentication, consider using it. Microsoft are in the process of enforcing it, (slowly), and if they have not got to you yet, you will only be ahead of the game.
Consider dropping email scanning if your antivirus product offers it. Some A/V product struggle to multitask on multiple mail connections at the same time. I think anyway. I know I do not have the issue and use Microsoft Defender which has no mail scanner.
Ohh, and you go to account settings on the menu to change account settings. You do not try and add the account again. It is a popular method of really making a mess that I do not understand, but must accept is occurring and warn against it.
If you access your hotmail account on this link https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/mail/accounts ytou will see a link at the bottom of the settings for POP etc to the page I link to below. I think it is a generic page these days, but it might be better to access it that way, just in case it is not generic.
Microsoft publish the following setting that you should use. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/pop-imap-and-smtp-settings-for-outlook-com-d088b986-291d-42b8-9564-9c414e2aa040
I still have a venerable hotmail account, but using the outlook.office365.com for incoming and smtp-mail.outlook.com for outgoing server names. I think I updated them when I changed the authentication method to oauth as that is only avaiable with certain server names.
If oauth is not available. change the server name, close the account settings and open them again and retry. The authentication method list only refreshes when the panel opens. Not when the server name changes.
Matt said
I would suggest you look at the frequency of connections. Historically Thunderbird approaches connecting to get mail as a sequential thing, so five accounts would be connected one after the other. Now it is a multi threaded thing where all five may attempt to connect at once. I have no idea if this will help, but it might. Stretch out the frequency of connection as far as you feel you can. Stagger the frequency 15 minutes for one account 17 for another so they all do not click over at the same time. Keep in mind that hotmail used to refuse connections that arrived at less than 15 minute frequency. so do not set account to a lesser time. If you are using IMAP accounts try changing the connections in server settings > advance to 1 or 2. It will slow the download, but it might reduce the errors as well. If you are not using oauth authentication, consider using it. Microsoft are in the process of enforcing it, (slowly), and if they have not got to you yet, you will only be ahead of the game. Consider dropping email scanning if your antivirus product offers it. Some A/V product struggle to multitask on multiple mail connections at the same time. I think anyway. I know I do not have the issue and use Microsoft Defender which has no mail scanner.
Okay - experiment with staggered frequency is under way! And thanks for all the tips on things to look at if I still encounter problems. I, too, use defender so no e-mail filtering other than what T-bird does. Which works very well for me. And I've had that issue with one of the T-bird updates a year or two ago where I had to rebuild everything - didn't lose any data but had to rebuild the local folder structure and create new accounts. And again - great response - I'll mark this solved after a day or two when I can prove the problem is gone - but thanks to what you presented I can see a clear path to success!