No external email client can access my att.net email

I've been using Thunderbird for years, both with Comcast and now Uverse (att.net) without problems. Here's a thread that might help some. http://forums.att.com/t5/Features-and-How-To/Mozilla-Thunderbird/m-p/2668993/highlight/true#M23011

Thanks, and actually before I wrote my question, I did locate, read,
and tried to follow the advice offered at:
http://forums.att.com/t5/Features-and-How-To/Mozilla-Thunderbird/m-p/2668993/highlight/true#M23011

and also:

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401568
http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401570

and

http://www.ehow.com/how_6822136_set-mail-plus-forward-pages.html 

which led me to EITHER ATT.NET or YAHOO.COM pages for mail OPTIONS that

clearly said 'If you want to check email from this att.net Mail account in an email client like Outlook, visit "Pop & Forwarding" on the left.' - and several tutorials SHOWED the 'Pop & Forwarding' choice on the left side of the screen.

THE 'POP + FORWARDING' OPTION IS NO LONGER VISIBILE AT ATT.NET / YAHOO.COM MAIL OPTIONS.

THE WEBMAIL AT ATT.NET DOES NOT GIVE ME THE SERVER - CHOICE TO PERMIT POP ACCESS. 

I tried EVERY recommended and possible variant trying to set up a simple Windows Live Mail account.

Primarily:

Incoming (POP)                     pop.att.yahoo.com
Outgoing (SMTP)                 smtp.att.yahoo.com (requires authentication)
User name:                         (my email address)@att.net
Logon using    authenticated POP (APOP)
Logon using account name        (my email address)@att.net
Logon using Secure Password Authentication
Incoming mail server:             POP3
Incoming/Outgoing User Name:     Full AT&T email address, including domain (e.g., test@att.net, test@bellsouth.net)
Incoming mail port #:             995, secure connection (SSL) checked
Outgoing mail port #             465, secure connection (SSL) checked

Then, when I got back error messages such as:

Unable to send or receive messages for the Att (______ ) account.
Windows Live Mail couldn't log on to the email server using authenticated POP (APOP).
Contact your email provider and verify that it supports authenticated POP. ...

So I tried all available authentication and NON authentication options. 

I still could not send or receive any email. 

I do believe for new users, like myself, the POP access to ATT.NET to allow me to use

any email client has been crippled by AT&T or YAHOO at the server level. 

Any other new users running into this dead end wall?

Anyone working at AT&T willing to step up and help?

thanks -

Your experience and conclusions mirror mine. I tried to go back to my blackberry bold 9700 from an iphone 3gs. Spent hours trying to figure out why att.yahoo mail would NOT work, no matter what I, or AT&T support did to "fix" it.  My regular windows live hotmail account worked just fine, but not my AT&T email - no way/no how.  I concur that Yahoo does not support that mail format, perhaps an attempt to leverage everyone into "the cloud".  AT&T tech support said that Yahoo mail was a known issue and they were "working on it" - but message threads go back at least 3 months on these issues so I would begin to wonder whether that want to fix it.

I ended up back with 3GS, a nice  multimedia device with cool software but lousy phone call quality. The opposite of Blackberry, with excellent hardware but lousy software and OS - including 6.0XXX. Good luck with your quest.   

I have been an established at&t.net email user for some time and the Blackberry simply would not work for this.  It does work with 3GS so it is not a server side issue as far as I can tell. One other thing, it worked until I "upgraded" the 9700 to OS 6.xxx, version 5.XXX worked fine for att.net. So my problem seems specific to B.B. os ?

I've been using my AT&T mail on  Outlook and Live mail since 2009 and have never had an issue.  How to setup your e-mail client.

You are paying for Yahoo since you are a UVerse customer. You should be able to use Outlook, or Live Mail. Yahoo Plus is for those who just use Yahoo Mail.

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@Waterbuffalo wrote:
Hi Oufanindalas - thanks, but as you can see from earlier emails, I think options have changed in light of the NEW YAHOO MAIL PLUS option. See: http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/enhancements/mailplus. For $19.99 / yr you can get 'Email forwarding' - but except for long time users like both you AND ME (I too get Yahoo via my iPhone), regular NEW NON-PAYING Yahoo mail users don't get POP access to local email clients. I believe because AT&T is now a simple layer on top of the cheap version Yahoo - for now, AT&T NEW (NOT OLD) subscribers don't get POP access to email. Maybe that will change when AT&T finally reads this thread. Someday. Good Luck.

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I've had an ATT (well, BellSloth) email account for years, since I first started using AT&T DSL. I used the same account when I moved to U-Verse. I've had the mail POPed over to my mail client all that time, as I never could stand AT&T's webmail. Every ever so often when I check mail my mail client (Mail on Macs, Thunderbird on Windows) reports that the email password for the AT&T account (and only the AT&T account) is incorrect. If I try again it usually goes through. (Sometimes I have to try two or three times before AT&T gets the message.) I have not changed my email password. AT&T's email server just screws up, randomly, that's all. This is, of course, a good reason why I don't hand out that account.

Sometimes when I send a test email from the AT&T account that mail never arrives, though subsequent ones might. Sometimes when I send a test email to the AT&T account that mail never arrives, though subsequent ones might. This is, of course, another reason why I don't hand out that account and use it as rarely as possible.

Basically AT&T's email service is the worst I've seen since my days on BBS systems. It's slow, unreliable, and loses its passwords and finds them again randomly. I usually use either my Gmail or my .Mac/MobileMe/whatever Apple Marketing is calling it this week account instead, or one of two other 3rd-party accounts which I have, not counting the Exchange Server account from work. None of them drop passwords, none drop incoming or outgoing mail, and all (even the Exchange Server account!) are faster. I know what hardware our Exchange Server is running on, so the fact that AT&T gets beaten by _that_ means that their system (or, rather, Yahoo's system) is truly pitiful.