Valid POP password rejected by mail

I've seen this problem before with my mother-in-law's account, and wasn't able to resolve it so she simply stopped using my server for her email, but that's not an option for me, so here's the situation as near as I can tell.
One of my POP3 accounts started instantly erroneously showing "POP server rejected the password" a couple days ago. I've verified that it's a Mail issue by both logging in to webmail on my server with the same login info as Mail has, and then also configuring Thunderbird with identical info and it successfully logged in and downloaded all messages.
The error message actually pops up even before it could possibly attempt a login to the server, but I'm not sure where else I can check to troubleshoot. I tried repairing the Keychain, and it reported no problems. I also tried deleting any Keychain entry for that account to no avail either.
Further information that links it to Mail.app instead of the server or another ISP-related problem is that I have a couple other POP addresses on the exact same server that don't have any problems logging in.
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

One of my POP3 accounts started instantly erroneously
showing "POP server rejected the password" a couple
days ago. I've verified that it's a Mail issue by
both logging in to webmail on my server with the same
login info as Mail has, and then also configuring
Thunderbird with identical info and it successfully
logged in and downloaded all messages.
The error message actually pops up even before it
could possibly attempt a login to the server, but I'm
not sure where else I can check to troubleshoot. I
tried repairing the Keychain, and it reported no
problems. I also tried deleting any Keychain entry
for that account to no avail either.
Hi,
Could you please specify more precisely WHEN the error message is shown?
For I have a client that has the same problem and we tracked it down to a stupid timeout problem in Mail - description
- Start Mail
- Check for new messages
- Activity window shows that Mail is sending user name/password to the POP3 server
- Mail is waiting for the "+OK User johndoe has xx unread messages." message from the server
(actually it is only waiting for "+OK" part of the conversation but ....)
- The problem arises when my client leaves to many unread messages on the server. Then it takes SEVERAL MINUTES before the server will come back after Mail did send user name/password.
HOWEVER (lil' stupid) Mail has a timeout of (iirc) 1 minute before it gives up assuming that user name/password was incorrect. And displays the dreaded error message "POP server rejected password"...
So - please test with Terminal or any other programm how long it takes (after providing user name/password) until the POP3 server comes back with the message "+OK"....
This will help diagnose the problem.
Cheers,
Walter

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.mac password rejected in Mail; works on web

I have an account set up in Mail to retrieve the mail on my .mac account. For several years and up until today I had no problems receiving my mail. Suddenly I am getting a warning window with the message below when I attempt to get mail.
"The .Mac server “mail.mac.com” rejected the password for user “myusername”"
It prompts me to enter my password, which keeps being rejected.
I did not change anything in my account settings. Also I am able to to login to my .mac account via the WWW and get my mail that way (indeed, if there was something wrong with that password I would not have been able to log in here to post this message).
I have made sure the password in my Mail account is the same as the password in my .mac settings. This does not make any sense and is very frustrating.
Does anyone have any insight into this?

Hello,
I am having the same problem not being able to access e-mail service through my computer because it won't accept my password. Shaw Cable tells me I need to re-install the Mail program, because they can access my e-mails through their Mac computer. I'm unable access my e-mail through the internet as well. Apparently Apple cannot re-install my e-mail program because the warrenty has run out. Apparently I can re-install the Mail Program myself but I have no idea how. Is there anyone out there who can assist me with this.
Thank you.

Gmail password rejected in Mail.app

Hi Everyone,
I have scanned through much of the archives looking for answers. My wife's 12" Powerbook cannot receive email from pop.gmail.com. It rejects the password EVERY time. We have been through the settings in meticulous detail about 50 times over. NOTHING works. Gmail rejects her password every time.
Every.
Time.
She has been on the gmail website and her password works fine there. Pop is enabled on the Gmail website. We have been through the email setup links at gmail.com time and time again.
Nothing works. Her password gets rejected time and time and time again ad infinitum.
HELP!!!!!
P.S. Works fine on my 17" Powerbook. I have no problems with Gmail.

hi - i can second this problem with a few more details for trouble shooting.
I have deleted the Mail account and started over countless times.
I have changed the password within Gmail, logged and logged back in to make sure the new password is the current one
I have repaired keychain access
and to top it all off ...
i have started an alternate gmail account and successfully linked it up with Mail without problems.
Any other things i can try before i give up on this email account?
15" iMac G4, 15" 1.25 Ghz Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.3) 3rd Gen iPod/2nd Gen mini/nano now playing: Editors

POP Password Rejection - again

Whilst retrieving email from my POP3 account in 'Mail', the password is being 'rejected' almost continually. I have retyped the password in the preferences tab, and sometimes it is accepted, but more often not.
Any ideas?

"Sometimes" makes me think that the issue could be on server side. I suggest to prove first, that the password you use is really correct.
Open a terminal window and type in "telnet xxx pop3" and press enter (replace "xxx" with the full qualified domain name of your pop3 server). You should get a greeting from your POP3-server.
Next type in "user yourusername" and press enter (replace "yourusername" with your POP3-username). And don't worry, if you do not see what you type.
Next type in "pass yourpassword" and press enter (replace "yourpassword" with your POP3-password).
Take a look at the first character of the response: a "+" accepted the password, a "-" not.

New Password rejected in Mail

I changed my password in iCloud & now Mail in Snow Leopard rejects the new one (including old ones I have used). All other products (iPad2, iPhone4 & iCloud) are fine. I restored using Time Machine, Backup & even reinstalled Snow Leopard using original DVD. Even deleted mobile me account in preferences then restored from older backup. Ideas or suggestions? Thanks.

Dear Hack: no, its not a keychain issue for me. I tries Time Machine to reset it but no go. Everything else I get email on works fine (iPad2 & iPhone 4) but Mail on my Mac using Snow Leopard is now useless. I logged on as guest on my other iMac (Lion) & it works fine.

Mail: The POP server rejected the password for user

I am completely unable to use Mail.
I keep getting the "The POP server rejected the password for user" on two of my accounts.
The password has not changed and I have entered it correctly.
The accounts just will not go online.
This started yesterday when an old machine accidentally fired up mail and tried to connect using the same user details. Since then, my MacBook Pro is not able to connect to my mail.
My iPad and my iPhone can. There is no problem at the server or the ISP. I have also run the Keychain repair utility.
Please can you advise how I should fix it? Plist? Define the accounts again?
Any ideas welcome.
Thanks

Sorry I can't be of help, I know of others with this problem. In my case I have two accounts that don't work in Mail whilst the other accounts do. I suspect it may be a bug as I've been looking for a solution for sometime. My current solution is to collect the mail on those accounts with an XP netbook which is probably not very helpful!
I have also tried the Keychain repair and at least for a short while it looked as if it had fixed it.
Any ideas anybody before I go through the hassle of reinstalling everything?
D

Mac Mail rejects valid btinternet password

Ok, first off I have looked into this problem and came across a thread from a year or two ago that was incredibly long and was ultimately locked by someone from BT, on the assumption that the problem has been fixed. Evidently this is not the case.
I have happily had my mac Mail and my iPhone receiving email from my pop3 account for around 2 years. The other day I happened across a BT Openzone network and tried to connect using my btinternet email and password, however could not do so. This is the first time I have tried to do this as I have always used the 3G network when not at home. I was sure I was using the right password and so to check, I tried to log onto the BT Yahoo website (something I have never needed to do). Again, I could not log on and so assumed I had forgotten my password. I was dubious because I don't forget passwords, but assumed I had, at some point, created a random alternative password for my mail account.
I therefore tried to reset my password but apparently failed the security questions because it asked me to call them up. I did, and the password was reset, allowing me to log onto the BT Yahoo website as well as the BT Openzone network.
Here's where it gets annoying. Upon opening up mac Mail, I was presented with the box to enter my password and thought this was perfectly logical, seeing as I had now changed it. I entered in the correct password and lo and behold, the password was rejected. Several more attempts brought me no success either.
I have looked up other people's issues on this and understand it is a frequent problem, and so tried some of their solutions such as deleting and recreating the account (during creation there is a warning saying it can't connect to the server), and resetting the router (no help). One thing that did work is logging into the BT Yahoo website which fixes the issue on my mac Mail client and allows me to send/receive emails again....strange.
A lot of people say they have had this issue on and off in the past few years but that's where I differ. I have had mail working perfectly since I set it up. The only thing that has changed from before to now, is that I changed my account password. Changing the mac mail password to the same one should mean it is in exactly the same situation as before.
Does anyone have any useful information to help remedy this issue (preferably someone from BT themselves?)
Thanks
Solved!
Go to Solution.

gg30340 wrote:
I found this on the Apple support forum. It might be worth a try:
"I have a solution that has lasted a couple of days for me so far. I hope I am not judging the success too soon!
I have just changed my yahoo password to contain only lower case and numbers. I haven't had another failure since!
The reason I tried this is because I only started getting the problem when I changed my password a week ago. That new password had upper and lower case letters as well as numbers and the problem started to occur the following day. My previous password had had only lower case letters and numbers. Nothing else I did had any effect and I observed all the same symptoms that others reported on the many support threads"
I have no idea why, but I think this may have just solved my problem. Got rid of the capitals in my password and changed the mail setting accordingly, and so far it hasn't rejected it. My guess is there's some issues between the encryption algorithms used by mac mail and the BT servers, and capital letters screw that up somehow.
Any chance you could link me to that apple forum where you found that post? Thanks for your help! Strange fix, but seems to have worked

Mac mail password rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected and rejec

os 10.3.9
Mail 1.3.11
SBCglobal Internet access
I have spent many a wasted hours chatting with a very polite person in India (SBC tech support) about my mail problem only to be assured - more than once - that all my settings are correct and it’s a mac problem.
So here it is:
My incoming mail server is: pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com
I have my account password stored my mail program/keychain and sometimes mail manages to automatically access and download my email - just like you'd think it would. BUT then all of a sudden it doesn’t, and I get the error from mail:
The POP server “pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com” rejected the password for user “[email protected]”
Please re-enter your password, or cancel.
I re-enter - or cancel and wait for the next scheduled auto-check and it happens again and again. Occasionally though it works. If I hit the 'Get Mail' button twice in a row its pretty likely to reject the password at least once.
Any ideas why this should be - or how I could stop it?
Thanks in advance
Powerbook G4 800 DVI Mac OS X (10.3.9) 512RAM Airport Card Firmware: 9.52

This issue may have more to do with your mail server rather than your Mac.
I too was afflicted with issue for over a week. I tried many fixes including, keychain repair, deleting my mail prefs and rebuilding my accounts by hand, toggling the interval button, shutting down and unplugging everything including AC power to my Mac. (btw -cancelling the message seemed to make it come back faster)
It was happening about half dozen times a day. Then one day it happened only 3 times, the next day twice, the next day once. Then gone! Fingers X'd it's 3 full weeks now without seeing it.
There is hope!
EDIT: As Max Miles says multiple computers can cause this. All are valid suggestions and may work in your cases.
-mj
[email protected]

Pop-server rejecting my password

i have an e-mail account at netidentity.com. i've had it for about five years. it's been configured within mail.app flawlessly since that, most of the time. but from time to time, i am repeatedly prompted for my password. the popup says that the pop-server rejected the pasword for that account, and please enter it again. if i enter my password, it's rejected and the prompt pops up again immediately. this can go on, and i have to cancel, leaving the account inactive for some time. the situation usually resolves in a day or two, but meanwhile, i'll have to check my mail using their not at all that good webmail service.
this time around (yesterday and today) this situation occurs when i'm at home. using only an airport express and the modem, no firewall. at work, however, there are plenty of firewalls, but i could get my mail as expected. at other times though, this would happen no matter where i'm at.
does anyone have any clues as to what i could be doing wrong? or is this just the internet weather conditions we live under?

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Pop Sever Rejected my Password

I have been experiencing problems with macmail since 10.5 was released. POP server rejected my password box intermittently. It is annoying and Apple Support told me 10.5.5 was released to help solve this problem. Well so far it has not. Is there anyone with suggestions as to how to fix this problem?

Steve,
I'm looking for the same answer. That annoying box popped up even while I was typing this message. For me it does it even more often than 5-min increments, which seems to eliminate a problem within the automatic check mail feature.
Any chance that you're on Comcast? I'm not ruling out the problem coming from them, since my message tells me that "the POP server 'mail.comcast.net' has rejected my password.
Comcast advised me to trash my keychain passwords for my email accounts. I did that, but it did not solve it.
Any help out there for (now) 2 users?

POP server reject the password for....

Dear All,
I am trying to set-up the mail client of my macmini runing Lion Server (on the same machine), but I get the message
"POP server reject the password for user "John".
As I am not an expert on Lion Server, can anyone please tell me what I am doing wrong.
The loggin account name on the server is "John", PW is "1", domain is "exemple.jp"
The mail address is concequently [email protected]
1st: is the POP server PW different from user loggin password?
2nd :is there a place on the mail pop server for user password.
3rd: how does this work??
Thanks for any help.
Bruno

Sorry I can't be of help, I know of others with this problem. In my case I have two accounts that don't work in Mail whilst the other accounts do. I suspect it may be a bug as I've been looking for a solution for sometime. My current solution is to collect the mail on those accounts with an XP netbook which is probably not very helpful!
I have also tried the Keychain repair and at least for a short while it looked as if it had fixed it.
Any ideas anybody before I go through the hassle of reinstalling everything?
D

Comcast POP Server Rejecting Password & Now Dysfunctional (Keychain?)

I'm starting a new thread because a related topic "POP server rejecting password" is marked answered, but for Charter, which solution will not work with Comcast. Comcast has advised that some problems are stemming from internal changes (commencing near the end of November 2007) mandated by the FCC to improve security. But, given that I can access the Comcast email account remotely via my Treo Smartphone (using Sprint), and via Comcast Webmail, makes me think that my Mac (OS 10.4.8) and/or Mail application may also be culpable.
I specifically am having a problem with a Comcast email POP server, but not two other POP inboxes hosted by another, unrelated ISP, also managed by Mail.
When I open Mail, the Comcast mailboxes (both inbox and sent) are grayed out with a ~ next to them--I've never seen a ~ before. The other two mailbox pairs (the non-Comcast ISP) work normally. Selecting Mail's Connection Doctor produces the results: "Connection and login to server succeeded" for the Comcast POP and "Connection to server succeeded, no login required" for the Comcast SMTP--no difference when compared with the results for the other, non-Comcast ISP mail accounts. This is notably different from posts in the other thread.
Historically, I'd occasionally (perhaps monthly or so) get the popup request "Enter Password for Account..." Comcast previously conveyed that such treatment is normal. I perhaps could have alleviated this by adding the response to the keychain, but never bothered. Problems began yesterday when typing in the correct password resulted in the same request, repeatedly without end.
Called Comcast tech support (three times now), verifying that the Mail application is set up OK. They acknowledged that they were experiencing some server outages, but that was unlikely the issue since I could access such via Comcast webmail. Of course, they referred me to Apple--my Mac "had to be the problem."
The other topic suggested, perhaps, that keychain was at fault. So, using the Keychain Access utility, deleted all items. I was motivated to do this anyway based on speculation last week by the Trash It scriptware developer that I may have keychain corruption, as regarded another, hopefully unrelated problem, now resolved, having to do with attempting to eliminate "localized.rsrc" files from the trash via the Terminal command "sudo rm -R ~/.Trash/*" returning the error "...(my formal user account name) is not in the sudors file."
Pulling my hair out on this one.

Comcast fixed the problem they were having with their server(s). No explanation, of course. Guess the problem was theirs entirely--no fault on our side.
Thanks David for your insight on what the (~) meant. Tried going online, but upon Mail checking, the affected mailbox immediately again went back offline--at least until Comcast fixed its end.
As regards the POP servers, yes I suspect there are intervening servers (PoP or otherwise) between users and the underlying database holding the email. All Comcast would acknowledge is that customer service representatives access the same customer email repository as do individual customers themselves, whether by POP or Webmail (Duh).

Password rejection by POP server

I have been able to download my mail from this webmail based popserver on and of for several months, but since three weeks I have not been able to download any into Mail.
When I access the account directly over the web I get in without a problem.
Thanks,
Hans Visser

I have set it up as POP; I have the same problem accessing it from my IMac as well as notebook running Mail.
Today our network consultant at CMB HQ looked at my problem on my notebook; we tried several settings and somehow solved the password rejection problem. However, it still wouldn't download any messages.
According to these guys the problem is Mail itself; it seems to timeout before downloading can take place.
They also tried downloading with Entourage which worked without a problem. Unfortunately it seems I can't import my Mail mailboxes into Entourage so that would still not solve my problem
I asked the network consultant to get in touc h with the dutch network manager and request them to sought out with Aplle Netherlands.
Any comments or recommendation are wellcome, thanks.

POP Server rejecting my password.....but doesn't

POP Server rejecting my password, so it says, I get an annoying msg several times daily for each of my addresses. It asks me to enter, or cancel, so I cancel, and get and receive mail just fine, can someone tell me what's going on?

Finally Comcast has admitted they are aware of the problem, see my conversation;
Problem : I need to contact a tier 2 analyst
Paul > I need to contact a tier 2 analyst
Roderic.22294 > Hello Paul_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Roderic.22294. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Roderic.22294 > I can help you with your issue. Can you please hold for one moment while I locate your account information?
Roderic.22294 > Thank you for waiting, Paul.
Roderic.22294 > Can you give us more details about the problem please?
Paul_ > only if you are a tier 2 analyst
Roderic.22294 > Can you tell me what the problem is so I can relay it to the next analyst?
Paul_ > too tech for you if you are not a tech 2
Paul_ > I have spent many hours explaining and at your level you will not understand
Paul_ > UNABLE TO VERIFY SSL SERVER MAIL.COMCAST.NETMail was unable to verefy the idenity of this server, which has a certificate issued to “mail.comcast.net.The error wasn SSL error occured while trying to read data from the server “mail.comcast.net. Verify that this server supports SSL and that your account settings are correct.
Paul_ > rejected password, please re enter or cancel POP Server “mail.comcast.net”
Paul_ > I need to chat with a Tier 2 analyst
Paul_ > Please
Roderic.22294 > I understand the problem, Paul. We are having issues with third party email clients, such as Outlook Express and Mac Mail.
Roderic.22294 > This is a known issue and we are working on it right now.
Roderic.22294 > You can still access your account for the mean time using the webmail at http://www.comcast.net
Paul_ > THANK YOU!, you are the first of many that has admited comcast has the problem
Paul_ > I know I can
Paul_ > thank you
Roderic.22294 > You are welcome, Paul. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Paul_ > any Idea when the glitch will be resolved?
Roderic.22294 > We do not have the exact time yet but rest assured that it will be in the next 24 hours.
Paul_ > wow, it has been now a few weeks
Paul_ > thanks
Roderic.22294 > You're welcome.
Paul_ > bye'
Roderic.22294 > Do you have any other questions about the service at this time?
Paul_ > no, thanks
Roderic.22294 > A ticket is created for this chat. You can use this ticket as a reference when you contact Comcast again regarding the same issue. The number is
Roderic.22294 > 28637515

E-mail password rejection AGAIN

This wasaproblem a few months ago
http://community.bt.com/t5/Other-BB-Queries/E-mail-password-rejection/td-p/234061/highlight/true/pag...
All happening again today.
I DESPAIR of BTOpenworld

Am also having exactly the same irritating problem as davrh (the original poster).
My configuration is Intel iMac, OS X 10.5.8 & Apple Mail 3.6.
Worked fine for about 3 years, then started rejecting passwords as below:-
The POP server “mail.btinternet.com” rejected the password for user “[email protected]”
Please re-enter your password, or cancel.
Problem started about five months ago. I am using 3 BTinternet mail addresses within 2 Apple user accounts on the same iMac - all the BT e-mail addresses have the same problem.
Interestingly, a gmail account operated within the Mail client does not have the problem.
I have increased the time period for the Apple mail client to "check for new mail", as an attempt reduce the number of pop-ups and relieve the irritation factor.
As passwords are set within in the Mail client account information, this should not be an invalid password issue.
I suspect it may be a timing issue on the BT Mail server side.
I had hoped the issue would be resolved with the new update of BT Yahoo - which is advertised as being 2 x faster.
But it hasn't!
Really need a fix for this.

Valid POP password rejected by mail

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