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can no longer connect to aol mail account

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by Chesshur

Chesshur
Chesshur
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I have 3 aol email accounts and only one of them is no longer letting me access my mail after receiving the dreaded imap error message -- Imap server failed to connect. This has been going on for the past few days. I have tried the following several times with very little luck.

1) Allow TB through both Avast & Windows Firewall. 2) Remove and re-add affected account. 3) Update Thunderbird. 4) Downgrade Thunderbird. 5) Create new TB profile. 6) Set less secure app settings in Google to on. 7) Set account config to Normal Password from OAuth2. 8) Set account config to OAuth2. 9) Set Ports to every possible combination.

I can no longer add my affected account due to the following message during configuration - "Configuration could not be verified - is the username or password wrong?" This started happening after removing my account for the 2nd time. My username are password are both correct! I have not changed either! There is absolutely wrong with this one AOL account since I can access it through the web. What is going on with TB?! I need to be able to use TB with this particular account since it's the main AOL account I use the most.

I have 3 aol email accounts and only one of them is no longer letting me access my mail after receiving the dreaded imap error message -- Imap server failed to connect. This has been going on for the past few days. I have tried the following several times with very little luck. 1) Allow TB through both Avast & Windows Firewall. 2) Remove and re-add affected account. 3) Update Thunderbird. 4) Downgrade Thunderbird. 5) Create new TB profile. 6) Set less secure app settings in Google to on. 7) Set account config to Normal Password from OAuth2. 8) Set account config to OAuth2. 9) Set Ports to every possible combination. I can no longer add my affected account due to the following message during configuration - "Configuration could not be verified - is the username or password wrong?" This started happening after removing my account for the 2nd time. My username are password are both correct! I have not changed either! There is absolutely wrong with this one AOL account since I can access it through the web. What is going on with TB?! I need to be able to use TB with this particular account since it's the main AOL account I use the most.

All Replies (3)

Chesshur
Chesshur Question owner
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[Update] I tried running TB in safe mode with no luck either.

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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These are the settings that work with my AOL account: incoming IMAP server imap.aol.com on port 993, outgoing server smtp.aol.com on port 465; for both servers, connection security = SSL/TLS, authentication = normal password or OAuth2, User name = email address.

Enable less-secure apps on the account:

https://help.aol.com/articles/allow-apps-that-use-less-secure-sign-in

Disable Avast Mail Shield for incoming and outgoing mail, and SSL scanning:

https://help.avast.com/en/av_free/17/settings_sh_mail_basic.html

Chesshur
Chesshur Question owner
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Thanks for your help sfhowes. I did have less secure apps set to allow for both Google and AOL. I did try using your settings along with all other possible ones. I never installed Mail Shield for Avast Free. As I said before, I had ALL TB folders added to Avast exceptions. I even updated Avast to the very lastest version.

However, I discovered that it was indeed Avast that was not letting this one account to be added for some unknown crazy reason. This is extremely strange since I had the exact same settings for the other two accounts I had on TB and never had any trouble with them.

I was able to re-add my AOL mail account after I totally disabled Avast. After enabling Avast again, I had no problems with this account so far which is strange. I can only hope that this won't happen again once I turn my PC back on. IMHO, AOL has gone way down hill when it comes to their email. I would get rid of them, if I didn't have so many sites and contacts already attached to the accounts I have.