[Rumor]

For both of my email accounts. It seems very sporadic when it does. Even when I click "Remember in Keychain", it still asks. This has been happening since the 10.4.7 update. Anyone else having this problem or know why this is happening?

[mac1896]

Originally Posted by Rumor

For both of my email accounts. It seems very sporadic when it does. Even when I click "Remember in Keychain", it still asks. This has been happening since the 10.4.7 update. Anyone else having this problem or know why this is happening?

Sounds like a permissions problem.

If you haven't already, try Repairing Permissions from Disk Utility.

[MaxPower2k3]

that's my #1 gripe with mail.app. repairing permissions doesn't seem to help, it will just randomly decide to ask me to enter my password again, even if it's in the keychain already. Always has. It also warns me that my mail server's SSL certificate is for a different domain than the mail server or something, which is fine, i click continue anyway, but then it asks me again every time i start Mail, and i have 3 mail accounts on that server, so i have to click continue three times (and usually enter my password for at least one mail account) every time i start mail. it does this on both of my computers.

[larkost]

This does not sound like a permissions problem... *sigh*

This is happening because you are using POP, and your mail provider is objecting to you checking too often. Because there was no signal for this provided in the POP3 standard, it is giving an authentication error, which Mail.app interprets to mean that your credentials are wrong. Not the best interpretation in this case, but not a bad one.

Set your mail program to check less often, and this problem will go away.

[gbhgbh]

This also happens whenever your mail server is down and Mail.app can't login successfully. If your mail server has web access, then go to the site and check its status.

[glyph]

I'm using Panther and this always happens after my ISP connection gets disrupted. Closing Mail and reopening it, or letting Mail fetch the messages at it's regular interval after reconnecting - seems to solve the problem.

[mac1896]

Originally Posted by larkost

This does not sound like a permissions problem... *sigh*

This is happening because you are using POP, and your mail provider is objecting to you checking too often. Because there was no signal for this provided in the POP3 standard, it is giving an authentication error, which Mail.app interprets to mean that your credentials are wrong. Not the best interpretation in this case, but not a bad one.

Set your mail program to check less often, and this problem will go away.

Possibly, but I use Earthlink (POP) and when their mail service is offline (about 2-3 times a year), I always (and only) get the alert that says the server could not be contacted and to check my internet connections (this was when I had preferences set for auto-login).

[Jonesy]

I also used to get the same password problem with POP accounts. Particularly an account with British Telecom. My answer was to move ISPs. I much prefer IMAP anyway. It seemed to mainly occur when my internet connection was flaky. I think the posters above are correct. Not permissions at all.

[ghporter]

To me it sounds like the mail server not taking the password when Mail sends it. Sometimes this happens because of net conditions, and other times because of poor connections with the server. And still other times it happens because the server is screwy. I'd worry if it always happened, or if entering the correct password didn't work-and I'd call the ISP right away.

[Thorzdad]

One fix for this that I've read about is to adjust the frequency Mail hits the server. I've read that if Mail hits the server too often, it can get confused and interpret the response as a password challenge.