Repeated failures on TalkTalk IMAP server

[jbuchanangb]

My Tiscali account is failing to connect to mail.talktalk.net and my TalkTalk account is failing to connect to imap.talktalk.net. My wife is reporting the same problem for her Tiscali account.

This is presently an intermittent problem. After many attempts Outlook 365 succeeds.

[jbuchanangb]

Hello @KeithFrench
I am a staunch user of the "old" Microsoft Exchange email client. The variant I am now using is Outlook 365 as part of my Office 365 subscription. I even used the original "Microsoft Exchange Mail Client" back in the 1990s when I configured it for POP access to my CompuServe account! So I know that when it prompts me for my password it is usually a server related problem.
Although I experimented with Outlook Express, Livemail, and even Microsoft Mail, I've stuck with traditional Outlook for almost 30 years. I think I changed from POP to IMAP about 8 years ago. Converting my wife's account was a bit tricky as she had a lot of local folders, which I had to recreate on the server and populate with all her saved emails.
I studiously avoid touching the obscured password in the error message, just click OK or cancel. Last Thursday it was so irritating, and affected both my accounts, and my wife's account on her computer (also Outlook 365) that I raised an incident report.
In the "Send/Receive All Folders" task report, the task that was failing was the "Synchronising subscribed folders" task, not the "Sending" task.
Just had the feeling of an overloaded server really.
My Outlook client connects to five email accounts nowadays! Four of those are IMAP (Tiscali, TalkTalk, IONOS and Gmail), the other one is Hotmail, i.e. a Microsoft Exchange Server. I have recently been getting random prompts for the password from the Hotmail account. In that case the legend "Connected to Microsoft Exchange" in the Inbox footer changes to "Password required". I click on it, do not get asked for a password, and it changes to "Connected".
So I don't think my email client is "forgetting" the passwords, either for the IMAP servers or the Exchange server.
Appreciate your update nevertheless, helps me remember all the ramifications of setting up email for a variety of platforms.

[KeithFrench]

Hi @jbuchanangb 

I have been doing more work on this and I am not convinced this is actually a TalkTalk issue. It looks like something has caused the SMTP mail server (outgoing emails) password to be erased in the email client. Putting it back seems to have resolved the issue. For more details, please see my post #20 in this thread of mine:-

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Email/TalkTalk-net-domain-SMTP-mail-server-not-responsive/m-p/31... 

[kanya-TT]

Hey there, @jbuchanangb. Can you try to restart your device and try again the issue seem to be solved as per the advice of others who had the same issue. 

Kanya

[jbuchanangb]

Come back to the PC at 8.30 after leaving it for a few hours, and Outlook is prompting me for the email passwords on both accounts. But emails have been received as recently as 7.55. So intermittent fault is continuing.

[davidl1]

Hi It seems to be an common issue today, we are all in the same boat !

[Mandisa-TT]

I apologize for any confusion. In the context of using Outlook 365, clearing the cache may not be the most relevant solution for addressing the repeated password prompts you're experiencing. These prompts typically indicate a connection issue with the email server rather than a problem with cached data. Let us know if the error conditions re-occur. 

[jbuchanangb]

I don't understand the suggestion to clear cache in the context of using Outlook 365 email program. To avoid the irritating repeated prompt for my password, which is the symptom of failure to connect to the server, I shut down Outlook. I have now restarted Outlook and for the time being it is working OK. I will let you know if the error conditions re-occur.

[Mandisa-TT]

Hi @Gordon_r If you want help, you cannot use someone else's thread.

To get help, you must start your own thread. To create your own thread, go to the main page for the board in question & click the "Start a topic" button.

@jbuchanangb can you Clear Cache now and kindly let us know if you are still having the issue.

[silvergirl]

I have just posted as I have the same using Thunderbird.

[gordon_r]

Same here, as of earlier today.  Webmail seems to be working, but I cannot use the Outlook client on my laptop to retrieve emails from the talktalk server.