Mentor
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106 Messages
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
75vette
Scholar
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93 Messages
9 years ago
Is it just me that's still having this problem?
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Travis_Lloyd
Mentor
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106 Messages
9 years ago
Almost every single day.
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tadraw
Teacher
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16 Messages
9 years ago
I've had this problem with Win 98, Win 7, and now with Win 8.1.Also on two different desktops in two different cities and a new Dell Laptop. I have NOT had it to date on a two-year old MS Surface but it runs Outlook without Office..
It has occurred in Office/Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2013.
Thankfully, it is just an annoyance, nothing changes regardless it you enter the actual password, a new password, or no password, or just press enter or press cancel. (That's my experience.) The good news is it eventually stops. The bad news is it eventually starts up again.
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meglhaden
Scholar
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112 Messages
9 years ago
A huge annoyance and I don't understand why AT&T feels like we need to be annoyed.
Come on AT&T...fix this already!! How many years does it take?
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Quaestor
Tutor
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8 Messages
9 years ago
AT&T will never fix this problem. Email service makes no money, therefore no resources will be allocated to fix the problem. If you want your AT&T account to play with Outlook the only way is to configure your account to foward unconditionally to another account, such as Gmail. Set up Outlook to download from the Gmail account, but set the return address as your AT&T account.
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meglhaden
Scholar
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112 Messages
9 years ago
We pay for service which includes email. AT&T makes money for the service we pay for. We should expect what we're paying for to work. If it doesn't they should fix it because it is a service we're paying for.
Come on community managers...report this problem that numerous people experience on a daily basis. I mean that is what you should be doing isn't it?
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75vette
Scholar
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93 Messages
9 years ago
I agree. It's an included service.. extremely poor service.
Today is logging up to be a bad day.... 6 times in the last few minutes!!
So much for watching tv & listening for email to come in, especially if you're waiting for an expected email. Today, I'll have to sit here and monitor it to make sure it's working.
Ridiculous!
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Quaestor
Tutor
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8 Messages
9 years ago
I agree with you, but this problem goes back for years - 10 years at least ?
and AT&T hasn?t done anything.
[Legal discussions are not permitted per the Guidelines]
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meglhaden
Scholar
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112 Messages
8 years ago
All day long keep getting these errors. How long will this continue until AT&T fixes it? It's been 10 years so far. Only happens on AT&T servers.
Task 'xxxxxxx - Receiving' reported error (0x8004210A) : 'The operation timed out waiting for a response from the receiving (POP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).
Task 'xxxxxxx - Receiving' reported error (0x800CCC92) : 'Your e-mail server rejected your login. Verify your user name and password for this account in Account Settings. The server responded: -ERR [SYS/TEMP] (#AUTH701) Service is not available; please try again later.
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lem3
Guru
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498 Messages
8 years ago
I think the ATT/Yahoo mail servers observed the holiday by taking the afternoon off. They seem to have had a nationwide 2 - 3 hour outage. Webmail and POP/IMAP were unavailable.
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