Instead of "Mailbox busy", Mail asks for password, long delay

We're testing Mail as a replacement for Eudora at my place of work. There is a POP account (not .mac) that is checked by five people. Using Eudora 6.x, if one person was checking the account, anybody else trying to check would get a Mailbox Busy message. Using Mail, you'd get an alert symbol next to the mailbox in the mailbox list, but next time mail was checked and the mailbox wasn't busy, it would work fine.
We just switched to a new mail server yesterday (on a Vereo host?) and now, though Eudora is behaving as before if the account is busy, Mail will pop up a box saying the password wasn't recognized, asking for the correct password, and then there's a loooong delay while it times out.
I presume the new server is sending some kind of busy message that Mail interprets incorrectly, but it's a show-stopper for us. Currently our options are:
1. Stop using a shared mailbox (my personal preference, but the actual users might not go for it)
2. Find out from the provider why the new server is causing this behavior (fat chance--they're likely to blame it on our weird Apple software)
3. Find out how to make Mail interpret the busy signal correctly.
4. Forward the account's mail to all the users' own addresses, instead of having them check that account themselves (am doing this now, will see how it works out. It will require more storage space on the server, at a minimum.)
I'm trying to find out if the server supports IMAP but in any case that would not be a workable solution for us.
Any feedback or enlightenment would be greatly appreciated.
--Colleen
Mac mini G4 1.25 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

"More Like this" entry " Phantom Mail Account won't let go! Steven Shmerler SASNET Design, New York Oct 10, 2011 7:56 PM" gave me a clue, which after 15 minutes without annoying message, seems to work.
Went to Mail Preferences/ Accounts/ Account Information/ Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)/ Edit SMTP Server List...
There were four (count them, 4) references to Earthlink. I deleted them, restarted Mail, and so far so good.
Thanks

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Sending mail asks for password

I'm trying to send mail and no matter which email I use (I have multiple mac mail and my website mail linked to my mac mail) I get the pop up asking for my password I punch it in and it pops up again, it won't accept the password. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Are you sure that your outgoing mail server (SMTP) requires a passwort? Because if you try to authenticate with a password and the server does not "want" a password, this can result in errors.
Go to:
Mail --> Preferences --> Accounts ---> At the left side chose your account --> At the right side at the bottom chose Server Settings --> Switch "Identification" to "None"
Perhaps this works.
I have 5 mail accounts, only one really requires authentication on sending mail. The others don't. I had the same problems at the beginning.

Mail asks for password until exchange account is locked

I have a customer who uses Exchange, latest version.
They have 40 users still on 10.6.8, no problems with Mail or iCal.
When upgrading the computers to 10.9.3 we always get problems with mail.
It seems the Mail account is lost in the upgrade process. Sometimes even the local mail folders are lost and sometimes not.
On all of the upgraded computers the Mail account information is lost.
After setting the account up again, Mail always crashes first time.
Second launch causes the Setup guide to start again requiring the setup of the Mail account a second time.
Now the mail server won't accept the supplied password. It keeps asking until it is locked on the Active Directory. Unlocking and typing it two times or more may solve it, maybe another round of unlocking the account again.
If have seen this on 10 computers now.

Hi Ernie,
Normally my MacBook is off when I am on the road but I was not sure this time as I was testing the account settings on my new iPad.
So I switched off my Mac, started up my work PC and did send an email from my work account.
Then I did read the email from the iPad.
To make sure not to have issues with normal server delays I waited 15 minutes (would be normal also if I read my mail with iPhone/iPad on the road) to restart my Mac and open Mail:
It connected and downloaded the message without any questions for password.
So your suggestion may be right and in that case it is no issue to me.
I will set your answer to Helpful and keep the post open for some time to see if this really is solving my issue.
Thanks,
Menno

HT1631 Mail asks for password every 10 minutes

I suspect this is nearly the answer to my problem with Mail and Chrome in *10.6.8*, tho I have not recently changed my login p/w.
On my iMac with this configuration Mail will ask for my p/w every 10 mins or so, Chrome intermittently, and has done for months and is driving me mad! My MBP is fine.
Cheers, Colin

Hi, thanks for that, just found it in my Trash, which is a first for Apple Discussions with me.
Anyway I did a verify rather than repair and got:
Verification started
Checking keychain configuration for CC (user ID=XXX)
Home directory is /Users/XXX
Checked login keychain
Permissions incorrect on ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -rwxrwxrwx
Checked default keychain
Checked keychain search list
Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/1Passwd.keychain
Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/1Password.keychain
Checked contents of ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AIR/ELS/BBCiPlayerDesktop.61DB7A798358575D6A969CCD73DDBBD723A6DA9 D.1/PrivateEncryptedDatak
Checked contents of ~/Library/Application Support/Espionage/Espionage.keychain
Checked contents of ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AIR/ELS/BBCiPlayerDesktop.61DB7A798358575D6A969CCD73DDBBD723A6DA9 D.1/APSPrivateData/052B00379E6AE54ADE7AF005E8D5059Ck.dat
Problems were found; you should choose the Repair option to fix them
Verification failed
From the first bit in bold it looks as if you are correct, but it also says 'Problems were found …', so does it just give up listing after the first?
I think there only two Keychains I use, login and presumably System. The latter exists in Library/Keychains [which says it has not been modified for 10 months which also surprises me] and the former in ~/Library/Keychains last modified yesterday.
I assume I should copy them before messing?
Cheers, Colin

Mail asking for password

Hi All,
I did a search for this question and found one person who started a discussion about it but there were no answers.
I am running OS 10.6.8
About once or twice a week I will have my mac mail v. 4.6 show a popup screen asking me to enter the password for my POP account. I enter the password and check the box to remember the password in my keychain and things seem to work ok again for a while. Sometimes I will do this and it won't work and the popup keeps coming up. I then have to do a restart, quit out of mail and reopen it several times for things to work. Does anyone have an idea why this is happening? It's rather annoying and I'd like to resolve the issue if possible.
Thanks.

Sorry, No fix from me, JUST TOTAL AGREEMENT.
You are not crazy, I cannot get rid of this bug either.
To re-iterate: I am not making a mistake or forgetting to do anything.
Just a stupid bug that has existed for at least a year in my case on my:
Mac OS X 10.6.8 using Mail v 4.6:
Email settings DEFINITELY correct and perfect
Keychain Unlocked
Keychain repaired
Correct password entered
"Remember this password in Keychain" ALWAYS chosen
Items exists in Keychain, Definitely saved, No Errors nor typo's
seems to be in my pop3.live (hotmail & outlook com) accounts only
(PS: You have to log into your hotmail and outlook accounts via regular browser every once in a while when using 3rd party email client to 're-validate' your account as per MS agreements: this gets enforced ocassionally)
STUPID BUG !! But I am not holding my breath for fix, as this bug doesnt exist on my newer 10.8.x Macs

Mail asks for password upon launch, then crashes when password is entered

Greetings --
For the last week or so I've been having an increasingly regular problem with Mail. Upon launching, the app opens a dialog window saying, "Mail can't connect to the Google account 'Gmail'. Enter the password for user (username)." Then when I enter the password, the app crashes. Sometimes clicking the "Cancel" botton allows the app to open, but sometimes that results in a crash as well. Also, when I can launch Mail successfully, sometimes when I try to send mail, the outgoing mail will sit in the Outbox unsent.
I've been getting these warnings with both my Yahoo and Gmail accounts. Until a few days ago I was using Yahoo as my primary account, but the inability to send mail caused me to switch to Gmail as my primary. After a couple days of smooth sailing, I'm now getting the same errors with my Gmail.
Any guesses? Thank you in advance.....

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the name of the crashed application or process. For example, if iTunes crashed, you would enter "iTunes" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ User Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of crash reports. The name of each report starts with the name of the process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report related to the process in question. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

Ask for password every minute !!

I had this problem in the past but since i connected the iphone , mail ask for password every minute..
i tried to repair permissions, repair keychains as explained in other topics but nothing to do with it !
Maybe it as to do with yahoo mail or compatibility with iphone ?
Thank you for help

I also have no permission to restore the keychain , it's the last thing i can do..
any idea ?

Mail keeps asking for password and icloud setting do not load in system preferences

Hi,
I have a mac mini server with mavericks, i have 2 iMacs as clients running mavericks too, when i use iMac (A) mail app and icloud work fine, them i take iMac (B) and mail app start asking for password , it just won't take the password, icloud do not load and cannot use anything else on system prferences because it locks system preferences, i need to force quit system prefrences , so I return to iMac (A) and i get same behaivor as iMac (B), i would appreciate your help for finding a solution for this.
All network users get the same behaivor, local users do not get this behaivor.
Thanks
Hector

Hector;
I have the same problem. The solution is to log into your client, open Keychain, run Keychain First Aid under file menu. If it fails to find your keychain, note the path, mount the disk that it is looking for, and rerun.
In short, you need to have the disk that your keychain is sitting on mounted. While your user account is mounted, Maveriks cannot match the reference path. Looking like a bug.
Example:
my folder sits on a second disk on server. It is properly setup in the mavericks server.
On the server, it is locally referred to as: /Volumes/my_disk/Users/my_user. I can log in to mail on the server when I log in with my user name.
In the workgroup manager, the same location is referred to as:
afp://my_server.local/Users/my_user (or smb)
/Network/Servers/my_server.local/Volumes/my_disk/Users/my_user
So this is the network path. So the client should be looking for that. But instead, it looks for the local disk, which is not mounted as such. In other words, it looks for:
/Volumes/my_disk/Users/my_user/Library/Keychains
instead of
/Network/Servers/my_server.local/Volumes/my_disk/Users/my_user/Library/Keychains
To eliminate this problem, you mount the volume on the client, so it can find. I will keep the editorial to myself, but this is not quality software.
Ali

Cannot receive/send emails via Mail on Mac using 10.6.8, keeps asking for password, very frustrating. Any ideas please? Regards

Cannot receive/send emails via Mail on Mac using 10.6.8, keeps asking for password, very frustrating. Any ideas please? Regards

One more time, iCloud mail accounts are .me, .mac and .icloud. New ones are only .icloud.
iCloud mail is a standard Imap account that can be used with any mail client in existence. But You are talking about the ability to automatically setup an iCloud account in mail, which did not exist until 10.7.2.
You can use password or token authentification with iCloud mail (in Mail) it is your choice.
Set the account manually, set it as Imap, use imap.mail.me.com (no P number) for the incoming email and smtp.mail.me.com as the outgoing server.
The full settings (ports and security) are here. Use them and it will work, regardless of domain (mac, me and icloud addresses all use the same settings.
IMAP (Incoming Mail Server) information:
Server name: imap.mail.me.com
SSL Required: Yes
Port: 993
Username: [email protected] (use your @me.com address from your iCloud account)
Password: Your iCloud password
SMTP (outgoing mail server) information:
Server name: smtp.mail.me.com
SSL Required: Yes
Port: 587
SMTP Authentication Required: Yes
Username: [email protected] (use your @me.com address from your iCloud account)
Password: Your iCloud password
Note: If you receive errors using SSL, try using TLS instead. SSL is required for both IMAP and SMTP connection with iCloud. POP is not supported by iCloud.
For more information on how to use this information with your email application, consult your application's documentation.

Mail ask for the password all the time

Hello.
For the last month I´ve been experiencing problems with my mail. It ask me for the password every few seconds. I´ve have already tried all the solutions published at the help page in apple the site, but the problem is still on.
Could anyone of you give some help.
Many thanks.
PS: if someone could send me an answer in spanish, it could be easier for me.
Thanks.
IBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hola Luis.
I’ll reply in English, amongst other reasons because that allows me to copy & paste between posts, but let me know if there is something you don’t fully understand. You can post in Spanish if you want. BTW, you can make your life easier in these forums by going to System Preferences > International and moving English to the top of the list. The next time you launch an application, it'll be all in English.
Open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access, choose Keychain First Aid from the application menu, and proceed to repair the keychain. If that doesn’t work, you may try removing the password entry from the keychain and letting Mail create it again.
Note that Mail often doesn’t correctly report what the problem really is. If Mail can connect to the server but cannot log into your mail account for some reason, it’ll ask for your password, regardless of whether that’s really the problem or not. Don’t keep entering the password every time, because that’s not the problem (click Cancel instead, and take the account back online afterwards).
Some ISPs refuse connection attempts if they are too frequent, for example, or limit the number of simultaneous connections that are allowed from the same IP address, or the account may have become full, or there might be a problem with the network, or there might be a problem with the server... If the latter (i.e. if there is a problem with the network or the server), the problem will probably fix itself after some time for no apparent reason.
Actually, if Mail asks for the password every few seconds, then you’re probably checking for mail too often, and that alone could be the reason you have this problem. What’s the time interval chosen in Preferences > General > Check for New Mail? If it’s set to Every minute, try changing it to Every 5 minutes.
Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Network, choose Network Port Configurations from the Show popup menu, and make sure that the configuration used to connect to Internet appears at the top of the list.
Also, try using a different method to connect to Internet, if possible, or connecting the computer to Internet as directly as possible, i.e. bypassing any routers that might be present, using an ethernet cable instead of wireless, etc., and see whether that makes a difference.

Not able to open mail from my mac, gmail repeatedly asking for password. but using same password able to open gmail on safari

not able to open mail from my mac, gmail repeatedly asking for password. but using same password able to open gmail on safari

okay well they got me to take out some .plist files to see if that would help it didn't. I'm not sure what ones that they deleted for my self maybe someone here would be abel to tell you what ones to take out but didn't work the one that came close to working was this going into keychain and deleting the account(s) then reading them again.
if you are to do this please back up first with Time Machine. You can do this with a usb drive.
Okay so go back to where you had internet accounts and make sure mail is shut. click the - on the account your having problems with then quit system preferences.
Okay so then press cmd and space bar at the same time then type 'keychain access' into the search then click on 'keychain access'
once it is open go to the top of the window and put your email address that you are having problems with.
once you have put in your full email, have a look at what comes up i deleted things in the kind colome with 'internet password' and anything with under name that had smtp.gmail.com or imap.gmail.com so it would look like this, map.gmail.com - internet password.
right click and delete them. make sure not to touch any other files that dont say them things on them.
Once you have done this quit keychain access and then restart the computer, once the computer is restarted go back to system preferences and internet accounts and re-add the account.
Hope this helps. if something is not clear just ask.

I have never had to enter a password to access mail. However, recently, I keep being asked for password on my ****** address. Only on my macbook. (which, btw, has a version number the drop down doesn't offer as a choice. I had to putt 9.4)

I have never had to enter a password to access mail.
However, recently, I keep being asked for password on my ***** address.
Only on my macbook. (which, btw, has a version number your drop down doesn't offer as a choice. I had to putt 9.4)
When I look up the account the "password" is a long string of gobbledygook. Something I would never do.
But when I attempt to use that pw I still can't get in.
I have no trouble accessing that email account on my mac mini. Just on the macbook.
<Edited by Host>

Maiko,
I'm confess I'm still trying to get a handle on your problem. You do a fantastic job of describing it ... but I'm just trying to picture it accurately in my head.
I think, were I in your shoes, I'd begin by looking at what the debug page has to say for the specific destination in which you're interested in fixing. In other words, I'm not clear on where, exactly, this destination points ...
Destination illinois.edu.1945806043
Is that your site, or the division within your site that you want to fix? "Normally", you do not need to specify a site handle to get to your site within your transfer CGI ... if you say "uillinois.edu", it's enough to transfer your users to iTunes U ... but every site still has a handle, and you could, if you wanted to, actually specify it in your transfer CGI. For example, this:
Destination uic.edu.1139051993
is for my entire site ... it's my site handle. Whereas this:
Destination uic.edu.1991288441
is for a division within my site ... but it's impossible to tell the difference between "site" and "division" from just the handle (I mean, if I didn't say "this is a site" and "this is a division", there'd be no way for you to know). So when I look at your creds and permissions on your debug page, I can't quite tell if they give you download access for your site, or for the specific division you want to fix. If you could open the debug page with your division as destination (or confirm that that's what we're looking at), it'd rule out some things.

HT1430 I cannot get yahoo mail. The message asked for password for yahoo many times.

In order to use Yahoo! Mail, please turn Private Browsing off. Please go to Settings » Safari » Private Browsing, and turn it off
I cannot get yahoo mail nor send email on iPad 3. I have OS 6 just upgraded. It keeps on asking for password. I think my yahoo email was also hacked to compound the problem. Please help.

I get this warning now To. Never saw it in last 5 years and 4 iPhones. Cannot get yahoo small biz email access anymore via iPhone on safari web login because of this same warning. Typically , either yahoo or apple screwed up and changed something that effects millions and think nothing of it. (battery gate in all the iPhone 4/4s comes to mind here)
As you can tell I "used" to be an apple fan but after this iPhone 4s dies (prematureally of course) I will be getting my first android phone and see flash and the rest of the hidden Internet that apple kept from myself the paying customer.

Mail keeps on asking for password

Several times a day, mail asks for my passwords - I type them in and check the "remember" box but it doesn't help.
Is there anything I can do? This happened before the Leopard upgrade.
Walt

Have you deleted OS 9 to free up space? You might have accidentally deleted Keychain in the process if you did. I don't know if its possible, but you might have. Have you been having problems like this in the past?

Mail keeps asking for password despite a healthy keychain

So I've run across the problem where Mail constantly asks for the password even though I have it stored in a keychain. I have searched the board and tried every solution proposed. I have repaired the keychain and deleted and reset the password ... everything. It seemed to work for a couple of days ... then BAM! It started happening again. A solution would be extremely helpful as it is very annoying to continually plug in the password every hour or so.

I have the same issue. A previous thread on the topic was closed (although unresolved), so I guess this is where we can discuss possible solutions. Here's one curious thing I've noticed that helps me manage the issue (but doesn't resolve it):
At first when Mail started asking for passwords for all my accounts (even though before they had been working fine), I entered each one and also checked the box saying that it could be stored in the Keychain. But Mail just kept re-asking for the passwords non-stop, making the app unusable. So then I tried entering the passwords but not checking the box to save the passwords in the keychain, and lo and behold, that worked. However, I still have to re-enter the passwords every time I re-open Mail. This is very annoying, and I've even started using Outlook a bit, but Mail is so much better that I'm really hoping to find a solution to this issue.
(As with the OP, I've tried the keychain repair solutions and so forth. I wish I could pinpoint what might have triggered this behaviour to start suddenly just a week ago, but I'm just not sure.)
I wonder if there's a way to edit how Mail interacts with server...

Instead of "Mailbox busy", Mail asks for password, long delay

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