Getting spam at att.net

@sanfranman59 Let your devices (phone, computer) save the password and when you get logged in, do this:

Logout

Log back in and select "Keep me signed in"

Never logout again, you will have to do this with every device.

Save these cookies:

    https://att.net

    https://att.com

    https://yahoo.com

@sanfranman59   No, AT&T still pays Yahoo to provide this wonderful email service. 🙄  You should actually be going to www.currently.com to log in, otherwise you'll just have to make an extra step or two.

As far as the login issue, this is the official explanation.

@dellray Thanks for the response. Assuming I understand your suggestion, I think I already do have my devices remember my login information. But lately, I've been forced to regularly change my password because of "too many sign-in attempts".

One thing I've never understood about this is that if I change my password on my computer (and have it save the password and "keep me signed in"), what happens when I want to access my email from another device (mostly, my phone)? I have to change the password there also, right? And then, when I do that, I'll have to change it on my computer the next time ... and on and on. I must be missing something.

As I said in my previous message, I know there's a way to get the device to generate a random password for me, but how does that work when I want to access my email (or other website, for that matter) on a different device? Similarly, I don't understand how password managers work across different devices.

@sanfranman59  I assume you are using the "Forgot password" to get signed in, and if you are, you don't have to change your password, use the same one, but each one of your devices are independent and you will have to do the password thing on all of them. The whole secret is to "Keep me signed in" and the save the cookies.

@tonydi Thanks for the response. Huh. I wasn't aware of www.currently.com. I've always had Chrome set up to automatically open mail.yahoo.com whenever I open the browser.

I just tried opening www.currently.com. When I enter that URL in the address bar, it opens as currently.att.yahoo.com in the address bar. I see a Mail icon in the upper right corner of that page. When I click on it, it takes me to the same mail.yahoo.com page I've been going to all along. I don't get it.

I'd already read through the link that you sent about AT&T's official explanation for the password issue. I'm pretty much just as confused by that work around as I am about everything else that's gone haywire with accessing my email the past couple of months. It's ironic and vexing that the so-called "bad actors" seem to have an easier time getting into my email inbox than I do.

Re the AT&T/Yahoo relationship ... why did I lose all of my email prior to 2018 (I think that's when it was)? It's no longer an issue for me since so much time has passed, but it sure was a pain in the rear when it happened. I look back through recent email frequently and I wasn't able to do so when all of the pre-2018 just suddenly disappeared. Very annoying.

@dellray Thanks again for your response. I'm afraid that I'm too much of a Luddite to understand how all of this is supposed to work.

I don't think I'm using the "forgot password" link because I'm always either already signed in (because I told it to remember me for two weeks) or I think I know my latest password. What's been happening is that when I enter the password that I know should work (because I probably just changed it yet again within the past few days), it says that there have been too many sign on attempts and I need to change my password. So I do that (somehow coming up with yet another password idea) and I think it takes me through several other steps (e.g., sometimes wants me to come up with answers for "challenge" questions ... I think that's what they call them? ... it's difficult for me to recall exactly how all this has been working lately).

Are you saying that I don't actually need to change the password? I can just use the same one over and over again? If so, I wasn't aware of that and, I have to say, that seems pretty ridiculous if it's the case.

I don't understand the "save the cookies" part. I routinely clear out cookies, internet cache and history, download history, temp files etc. I thought I was supposed to do that so my browser doesn't bog down, no? Are you saying that I should somehow retain the three cookie files you mention (i.e. https://att.net, https://att.com and https://yahoo.com)?

(my apologies if I seem doltish about all of this ... I'm generally pretty good with computer-related stuff, but this type of thing just doesn't seem to sink in with me)

@sanfranman59 I do use the same password, but I use forgot password when I get the 205.2 error and yes, save those 3 cookies or you will continue to have the problem every day and make sure you logout after you get things working and select "Keep me signed in" when you log back in the second time - don't wait, do it immediately.

@dellray I really appreciate you taking the time to help me. I just don't understand why this has to be so complicated all of the sudden (i.e. the past couple of months or so). I went for years with AT&T/Yahoo email without any of these types of complications and frustrations (except for the fiasco with the presumed AT&T/Yahoo split back in 2018, that is). Why did they have to change things when it seemed like it was working just fine (at least for this user)?

Now all I have to do is figure out how to save just those three cookies. Is the process to find these three files somewhere on my computer in File Manager, copy them into another folder and then copy them back into the cookies folder each time I clear cookies etc.? That seems like a real pain, but I guess I can get used to it. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do any of this on my Android phone and I also frequently access my email there. I've never had much luck figuring out how to access the file system on my phone. That's particularly true for files like this (I can find photos and other data files ... usually).

Another question ... Doesn't the "keep me signed in" thing only work for two weeks at a time? If so, I guess I have to go through this process every two weeks on each of the devices I use to access my email?

@sanfranman59 I am not having any issues, but 2 weeks is better than every day if that happens. The other place that I do the same is att.com where you can access your email; I have used this and bypassed the 205.2 problem.

@sanfranman59    All roads lead to mail.yahoo.com, they have to because that's where your Inbox is located. But the path you travel to get to your email is determined by your login status when you begin the journey.

If you are already logged in and you go to currently.com (which is actually that longer URL when it resolves) and click the Mail icon, you go to mail.yahoo.com.

If you are not already logged in and you click the Sign In button on currently.com, it will direct you to a page that begins with signin.att.com where you'll enter your email credentials.  Then it will go to mail.yahoo.com.

As for your loss of email, that's not related to anything except the fact that it's Yahoo.  That sort of thing happens far too often, just like the 6 or 7 major issues that Yahoo Mail users have been plagued with this year (spam, password issues, being logged out in the middle of a session, etc).  All because they run a pretty leaky ship.