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Thunderbird password

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by david

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12-3-23 Thunderbird is asking for a second email password even though "Use primary password" is checked. This is on my Dell desktop computer running Windows 7 Professional which is the only device I use for email.

It has affected my ability to receive and send emails.

I have been using Thunderbird for years. Around the time (a few months ago) that I started getting pages of spam, I started getting the following error:

 "Login to server pop3.hughes.net with username janetc failed."

It will not accept my primary password and I see no place to find what Thunderbird is looking for in terms of another password.

Initially, when trying to block the spam, I used the process in my hughes.net webmail to block several pages of spam. However, this only tripled the amounts of spam I received. Along with troubleshooting this issue, I started marking emails as "junk" in Thunderbird. This has markedly reduced the spam.

I have tried closing Thunderbird and re-opening. Didn't help the failures.

At one point recently, I could neither receive or send emails. After my son took a look on Teamviewer, he changed some settings in my accounts to NOT automatically download emails from accounts that no longer have service. [My son is an IT professional working for UC Davis email but he doesn't use Mozilla.] After he did that, I was able to receive emails but not send.

I have tried changing some password options in Account and Server Settings.

 In Accounts settings I notice under SMTP - Edit, there are choices under authentication method  including "No authentication" and "Normal password".  Changing from Normal  password to No authentication did not help.

In Server settings, under Security Settings, there is no choice of "No authentication"

This seems to me to be a bug. I didn't make any changes in my account settings prior to this error nor prior to the arrival of all the spam.

But what did happen, which may have contributed or caused these issues is that I lost my Samsung cell phone in June of this year and did not recover it. It was password protected but I understand that it can still be accessed. I did not use that phone for email but my email address was probably given in it.

After writing all of this, I looked again in settings and found that, at the bottom of the menu list, is a second place for Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings. There I found it set to my old email address - janetc@2xtreme.net. So I changed that to hughes.net (default). I'm really confused as to why there are two places to set SMTP setting. And they can be different???? Anyway, the change did not help. I still cannot SEND.

This is the error message I get when attempting to send: "Sending of message failed. Am error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Authentication is required to use this service. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again." IT IS CORRECT!

ALSO, I can no longer find the place to change my primary password... Nevermind, I found it. I didn't realize there are two different "Settings" Menus. One is in the "pancake" in upper right corner and seems to apply to all accounts. The other is in the individual account settings. This is really confusing.

Enjoy and thank you!

12-3-23 Thunderbird is asking for a second email password even though "Use primary password" is checked. This is on my Dell desktop computer running Windows 7 Professional which is the only device I use for email. It has affected my ability to receive and send emails. I have been using Thunderbird for years. Around the time (a few months ago) that I started getting pages of spam, I started getting the following error: "Login to server pop3.hughes.net with username janetc failed." It will not accept my primary password and I see no place to find what Thunderbird is looking for in terms of another password. Initially, when trying to block the spam, I used the process in my hughes.net webmail to block several pages of spam. However, this only tripled the amounts of spam I received. Along with troubleshooting this issue, I started marking emails as "junk" in Thunderbird. This has markedly reduced the spam. I have tried closing Thunderbird and re-opening. Didn't help the failures. At one point recently, I could neither receive or send emails. After my son took a look on Teamviewer, he changed some settings in my accounts to NOT automatically download emails from accounts that no longer have service. [My son is an IT professional working for UC Davis email but he doesn't use Mozilla.] After he did that, I was able to receive emails but not send. I have tried changing some password options in Account and Server Settings. In Accounts settings I notice under SMTP - Edit, there are choices under authentication method including "No authentication" and "Normal password". Changing from Normal password to No authentication did not help. In Server settings, under Security Settings, there is no choice of "No authentication" This seems to me to be a bug. I didn't make any changes in my account settings prior to this error nor prior to the arrival of all the spam. But what did happen, which may have contributed or caused these issues is that I lost my Samsung cell phone in June of this year and did not recover it. It was password protected but I understand that it can still be accessed. I did not use that phone for email but my email address was probably given in it. After writing all of this, I looked again in settings and found that, at the bottom of the menu list, is a second place for Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings. There I found it set to my old email address - janetc@2xtreme.net. So I changed that to hughes.net (default). I'm really confused as to why there are two places to set SMTP setting. And they can be different???? Anyway, the change did not help. I still cannot SEND. This is the error message I get when attempting to send: "Sending of message failed. Am error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Authentication is required to use this service. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again." IT IS CORRECT! ALSO, I can no longer find the place to change my primary password... Nevermind, I found it. I didn't realize there are two different "Settings" Menus. One is in the "pancake" in upper right corner and seems to apply to all accounts. The other is in the individual account settings. This is really confusing. Enjoy and thank you!

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Please clarify briefly what your problem is. I think one problem is that you can receive, but not send. It seems to be accepting the primary password, since you also comment that you are able to receive mail. Also, there is only place to edit SMTP settings, so there may be a crossed setup issue.

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