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Travis_Lloyd's profile

Mentor

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106 Messages

Friday, April 25th, 2014 9:15 AM

Severe Problems With Outlook Email Authentication And Both Legacy DSL & U-verse

I'm an IT consultant who has worked with Outlook since the earliest versions and with AT&T since it was Southwestern Bell, and I have never seen a problem as bad as this.  This problem has been plaguing me and several of my clients for 2 or 3 weeks now and it's about to run us all nuts (some, like me, have "legacy" DSL and some have U-verse).  The maddening thing is that it happens intermittently, not constantly and with no rhyme or reason.  For reasons unknown, the AT&T mail server suddenly stops "authenticating" the Outlook client, either for the logon, password, or both and that accursed window pops-up asking for your logon & password.  However, no matter how many times you put them in (verifying that they are correct first) and check the "Save Settings" box, the authentication fails over & over again, and then just suddenly starts working out of the blue.  I have checked and double-checked all the settings and they are correct per the AT&T online documentation.  I've even run the online-based configuration tool and the same thing continues to happen on a totally random basis. One of my clients spent a couple of hours on talking to (overseas) tech support and they only made the problem worse, causing him to get a totally new email address and change his password multiple times. He also told my guy that AT&T has "mandated" that your password be changed every 3 months, but to the best of my knowledge that's only if you use the Webmail product, not the SMTP based method with Outlook.  This is happening with Office 2007, Office 2010 & Office 2013 products, right across the board.  I keep telling my clients that if I could solve the problem I'd do it for me first but that is not assuaging their frustration.  This has to be on the AT&T end of things due to the nature of the problem but they do not seem to want to acknowledge it.  Any insight as to 1. why this is happening on such a protracted basis and 2. what AT&T is doing to address it would be appreciated.  When it happens to this many people over an extended period of time there's definitely something "rotten in San Antonio"...  Thanks

Master

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5.9K Messages

10 years ago


@Travis_Lloyd@  wrote:

I'm an IT consultant who has worked with Outlook since the earliest versions and with AT&T since it was Southwestern Bell, and I have never seen a problem as bad as this.  This problem has been plaguing me and several of my clients for 2 or 3 weeks now and it's about to run us all nuts (some, like me, have "legacy" DSL and some have U-verse).  The maddening thing is that it happens intermittently, not constantly and with no rhyme or reason.  For reasons unknown, the AT&T mail server suddenly stops "authenticating" the Outlook client, either for the logon, password, or both and that accursed window pops-up asking for your logon & password.  However, no matter how many times you put them in (verifying that they are correct first) and check the "Save Settings" box, the authentication fails over & over again, and then just suddenly starts working out of the blue.  I have checked and double-checked all the settings and they are correct per the AT&T online documentation.  I've even run the online-based configuration tool and the same thing continues to happen on a totally random basis. One of my clients spent a couple of hours on talking to (overseas) tech support and they only made the problem worse, causing him to get a totally new email address and change his password multiple times. He also told my guy that AT&T has "mandated" that your password be changed every 3 months, but to the best of my knowledge that's only if you use the Webmail product, not the SMTP based method with Outlook.  This is happening with Office 2007, Office 2010 & Office 2013 products, right across the board.  I keep telling my clients that if I could solve the problem I'd do it for me first but that is not assuaging their frustration.  This has to be on the AT&T end of things due to the nature of the problem but they do not seem to want to acknowledge it.  Any insight as to 1. why this is happening on such a protracted basis and 2. what AT&T is doing to address it would be appreciated.  When it happens to this many people over an extended period of time there's definitely something "rotten in San Antonio"...  Thanks


 

They may suggest a password change every three months, which I've never heard before, but there is definately no "Mandate".

 

As far as clearing up the authentication issue, you might try this next time, as it's worked for me in the past when this happens.

 

 

 

Reset your Winsock Catalog.

 

Go to your "Start Menu" ---> "Accessories", find the icon for "Command Prompt". Right click the icon and choose "Run As Administrator"

 

When the command Prompt window opens, type the following: 

netsh winsock reset catalog 

Then hit "Enter", then reboot.

 

 

 

You can probably create a batch file which you could distribute to your clients that they could run when this problem arises.

 

 

 

 

 




__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
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I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
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There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

Contributor

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2 Messages

10 years ago

I am also having this problem,but I took the route of going to Microsoft.  They have a Tech support page that covers this problem.

It involves going into the computers registery and making changes.

the fix is Microsoft Fix it 50636   


This Fix applies to Office 2007.  The only problem that I have found is that this fix works okay for about 2 weeks then the problem returns. The fix can not be applied.

 

Microsoft explains the problem as:  "Under certain network conditions, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 prompts you repeatedly for a password. If you do not enter a password or if you enter an incorrect password, Outlook 2007 may silently enter Offline mode. In this case, you do not receive an error message or a notification, and you will not be connected to the mailbox. "

 

They do not give any explantion of the stated network conditions.  Therefore this must be a underlaying problem with the AT&T network.  When the AT&T Tech came out to check the problems with my old modem,  I showed him the popup, and he was lost as to what could be causing it, so he just told me that it was the computer that I was using.  He also informed me that soon no 3rd party e-mail programs would work with the AT&T Network.

 

I like my Outlook e-mail program and really would hate to give it up!

 

joel

 

Master

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5.9K Messages

10 years ago


@jelrod58@  wrote:

I am also having this problem,but I took the route of going to Microsoft.  They have a Tech support page that covers this problem.

It involves going into the computers registery and making changes.

the fix is Microsoft Fix it 50636   


This Fix applies to Office 2007.  The only problem that I have found is that this fix works okay for about 2 weeks then the problem returns. The fix can not be applied.

 

Microsoft explains the problem as:  "Under certain network conditions, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 prompts you repeatedly for a password. If you do not enter a password or if you enter an incorrect password, Outlook 2007 may silently enter Offline mode. In this case, you do not receive an error message or a notification, and you will not be connected to the mailbox. "

 

They do not give any explantion of the stated network conditions.  Therefore this must be a underlaying problem with the AT&T network.  When the AT&T Tech came out to check the problems with my old modem,  I showed him the popup, and he was lost as to what could be causing it, so he just told me that it was the computer that I was using.  He also informed me that soon no 3rd party e-mail programs would work with the AT&T Network.

 

I like my Outlook e-mail program and really would hate to give it up!

 

joel

 


 

 

Although similar symptoms, the issue the MS fix pertains to, is a bug in Outlook 07 specifically for connecting to Exchange Server.

 

The original post references an issue common to all versions of Outlook, and I believe most other POP clients, connecting to AT&T/Yahoo mail servers, and I think it involves corupted security certificates.

 

 

 

 

 




__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

Tutor

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7 Messages

10 years ago

 why this is occurring on such a protracted foundation and 2. what AT&T is doing to deal with it would be valued.  When it happens to this many individuals over an longer timeframe of your energy and effort there's definitely something "rotten in San Antonio".

Mentor

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106 Messages

10 years ago

Thanks, but I tried this fix and it made no difference whatsoever, either on my computer or that of a couple of my clients.  Remember, this is an intermittent problem, which happens frequently but not constantly; there are periods where the email suddenly starts working again for an indeterminate amount of time and then it will suddenly quit again and start failing to authenticate either the logon, password or both.  If it was on the client (Outlook) end of things it would either work or not, but not intermittently.  Hopefully somebody at AT&T will take heed of this and do something about it, because it's running us all nuts!

Mentor

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55 Messages

10 years ago

It may interest some of you to know that the problem also involves the Email program Evolution which runs on the Linux operating system.  So it obviously is a problem with something at ATT.  Another thing which I have just realized is this problem gets worse at this time of year.  I first started having problems about 2 years ago and finally got the attention of someone on this forum and somehow they convinced ATT to look into it and in few days it was fixed.  Again last year at about this same time the problems started over again.  And again someone from ATT that monitors this forum was able to convince ATT to fix the problem.  So here we are again.  If I had any other company available for DSL in this area I would change in a minute.

 

Carroll

Tutor

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7 Messages

10 years ago

When it happens to this many people over and more time period of time of your power and attempt there's definitely something "rotten in San Antonio". [url=http://www.mapitinc.com/basic-website-design.php]web design service[/url]

Scholar

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112 Messages

10 years ago

This has been an ongoing problem for many years. AT&T knows about it but will not do anything to fix it. They'll tell you to send a private msg and they'll have an expert contact you. The so called experts recomendation was to uninstall Outlook and reinstall it. We all know that doesn't work. Then they suggest to delete all the emails in all your folders. That doesn't work either. Next fix was to reset your pwd. Nope...not that either. Maybe you have a wrong setting. Nope..checked all the setting before even contacting AT&T. The straw that broke the camels back was when they sent me to some site called error-toolkit.com and wanted me to run some programs from there. No thanks AT&T...I don't need any malware today. This is the so called experts advice for resolving the problem. Not once did anyone ever think it could be a problem with the server. All the error msgs say it's a server problem but let's just ignore that and focus on it being a user problem. We're obviously not paying AT&T enough for quality service. Come on AT&T....fix the problem already!!

Mentor

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106 Messages

10 years ago

I am still struggling with this as calls continue to pour in from very frustrated clients; some of these are people who have been with AT&T for 10 years or more and have never had a problem of this nature until recently. After hours on hold with Indian (or wherever) so-called Tier 1 "tech support", after having been given some of the most bogus, useless advice in the world, they are now worse off than they were to begin with and are threatening to jump ship to Charter or Comcast or "anybody but AT&T".  And their complaints are all identical:  They use Microsoft Outlook in versions dating from 2003 up to the very latest, 2013, and have never had an "authentication" problem this severe.  Any fool (sorry to call names but someone has to get somebody's attention around here) can see that there is something terribly wrong at the MAILSERVER end of things when this kind of crap continues to hamstring this many hundreds (or more likely thousands) of people who have never experienced anything like this before. They're hanging on by a thread, being forced to use the "Webmail" option but they don't like it; that's why then spent a fortune on Microsoft Office so they could have the benefit of POP3 mail downloaded to their computers to better work with it.  Surely some AT&T employee somewhere who monitors this Forum can assess this ever-widening problem, get back with Tier 3 (or higher) Engineering and fix this thing before everybody dumps AT&T for cable.  We're waiting for an answer, but less and less patiently by the day...

Scholar

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93 Messages

9 years ago

It also is a problem in Outlook 2003. I've complained before, but nonthing gets fixed.

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