Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Error message when setting up my "Yahoo Small Business" email account

  • 17 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 43 views
  • Last reply by mraya77

more options

Hi Everyone,

I am new to Thunderbird (on my Mac). I have two email addresses, my personal (regular Yahoo email account) and my business ("Yahoo Small Business" email account).

The Thunderbird setup for my personal Yahoo email worked perfectly but for my Yahoo business email, I have a roadblock in the setup.

When the Yahoo pop-up window appears for me to enter my "credentials", I click the "Next" button and then it just gives me an error message: "Please enable cookies in your browser and sign in again". I have never had any issue whatsoever related to cookies and I doubt that cookies is what the problem actually is.

I also get an error message from Thunderbird: "Authentication failure while connecting to server"

I have attached three images: The Yahoo page with the error message. My two Outgoing Server address options (I have tried both but to no avail), and my Chrome cookies settings.

Thanks very much for your help!

Hi Everyone, I am new to Thunderbird (on my Mac). I have two email addresses, my personal (regular Yahoo email account) and my business ("Yahoo Small Business" email account). The Thunderbird setup for my personal Yahoo email worked perfectly but for my Yahoo business email, I have a roadblock in the setup. When the Yahoo pop-up window appears for me to enter my "credentials", I click the "Next" button and then it just gives me an error message: "Please enable cookies in your browser and sign in again". I have never had any issue whatsoever related to cookies and I doubt that cookies is what the problem actually is. I also get an error message from Thunderbird: "Authentication failure while connecting to server" I have attached three images: The Yahoo page with the error message. My two Outgoing Server address options (I have tried both but to no avail), and my Chrome cookies settings. Thanks very much for your help!
Attached screenshots

Modified by mraya77

Chosen solution

If the authentication is 'normal password', the cookies don't matter. It's only with OAuth2 authentication. I think Yahoo is planning to require OAuth2 starting next month.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (17)

more options

To proceed with Yahoo's OAuth2 authentication, you must have cookies enabled in TB Preferences/Privacy, not your Chrome web browser.

In your second picture, it appears you have the michael@ account sending through the Default Yahoo server, but I think you should set it to send on the bizmail smtp. Click Edit SMTP server to confirm that the bizmail smtp User Name is the same as the one for the michael@ account.

more options

sfhowes said

To proceed with Yahoo's OAuth2 authentication, you must have cookies enabled in TB Preferences/Privacy, not your Chrome web browser. In your second picture, it appears you have the michael@ account sending through the Default Yahoo server, but I think you should set it to send on the bizmail smtp. Click Edit SMTP server to confirm that the bizmail smtp User Name is the same as the one for the michael@ account.

Thank you so much!! Changing the cookies setting in the Preferences/Privacy settings did the trick!! You made my day! THANK YOU!!

I wonder why it was not an issue when I had set up my personal Yahoo email but it was an issue when setting up my small business Yahoo email.

Modified by mraya77

more options

Chosen Solution

If the authentication is 'normal password', the cookies don't matter. It's only with OAuth2 authentication. I think Yahoo is planning to require OAuth2 starting next month.

more options

Ah, I see. Thank you, again! You are my favorite person of the month!!

more options

Could I ask you a different question?

How do I increase the font size for the list of email in the mailboxes? I know how to increase the font size for the text within individual emails but not the text size of the list of emails of the Inbox, Sent box, etc. I went through the "View" settings and the TB "Display" settings, but no luck

Also, I saw in the "Advanced Display" settings that the Text Encoding defaults are Unicode UTF-8 for Outgoing and Western ISO-8859-1. Is one better than the other? Why do you think the default for outgoing is different than incoming?

Thanks again!

Modified by mraya77

more options

The font for the Threads and Folder Panes can be increased by changing a preference in Config. editor (simple):

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1269361

or with a userChrome.css file (advanced).

I don't know why the encoding is different for outgoing and incoming. The incoming may depend on your language locale, whereas Unicode ensures the widest compatibility with recipients' locales. Character encoding is only important for plain text mail.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Font_settings_in_Thunderbird#Character_encoding

more options

sfhowes said

The font for the Threads and Folder Panes can be increased by changing a preference in Config. editor (simple): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1269361 or with a userChrome.css file (advanced). I don't know why the encoding is different for outgoing and incoming. The incoming may depend on your language locale, whereas Unicode ensures the widest compatibility with recipients' locales. Character encoding is only important for plain text mail. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Font_settings_in_Thunderbird#Character_encoding

Okay, I will check out those links. Thanks again!

more options

I have another question, please. I am noticing that for some back and forth email conversations, the text is all black for the entire conversation. For other email conversations, I noticed the text is multicolored - where one message will be in green, and the reply is in blue, and the next reply is in red, etc. Why is that and is there a way to control that?

more options

The quoted text of conversations is always black with plain text email, but it's possible to color each level of quoted text in HTML mail with an add-on or a userChrome.css file. If you have neither of those, the colored text must be made by the sender's email program.

more options

Thank you.

I am new to TB have not downloaded any add-on's and have never heard of userChrome.css, so I don't know if I have that (is there a way to check?).

What I can tell you is that, prior using TB, I was using the Mac Mail app and never saw multi-colored text conversations.

more options

Also, I am now having reservations about using TB because I sent myself a couple test emails from my business email to my personal email. Second email was sent 5 minutes after the first. Neither email has shown up in my personal email inbox and it's been over an hour now. Both emails did, however, instantly show up in my Mac Mail Inbox and my online Yahoo website Inbox.

Now, I have done more test emails and they did go through successfully to my TB Inbox. It was just those two particular emails that have not gone through to my TB Inbox. And now I am nervous about using TB because I wonder if there might be future emails that don't find their way into my TB Inbox.

Interestingly, around this same time period when I sent those two emails, I received two duplicate emails from a friend of mine. However, in my Mac Mail Inbox and online Yahoo website Inbox, the email is there but only once (no duplicate).

So, maybe my TB app was going through a lapse in proper functionality at that time, for some reason.

I don't expect you to have the answer to this mystery but do you have any guesses as to what might be going on with that?

more options

If you're new to TB, you probably wouldn't know about css, so the colors must be injected by the sender. Does this happen with all HTML mail senders? If you send a test HTML message to yourself and reply a few times, do you see colored quoted text?

more options

sfhowes said

If you're new to TB, you probably wouldn't know about css, so the colors must be injected by the sender. Does this happen with all HTML mail senders? If you send a test HTML message to yourself and reply a few times, do you see colored quoted text?

Thank you. Yes, it seems to occur with all HTML senders. I hit the reply button and the colors occur.

Having a "conversation with myself" was a good idea. Just tried it and yes, it was a different color for each reply

more options

sfhowes said

If you're new to TB, you probably wouldn't know about css, so the colors must be injected by the sender. Does this happen with all HTML mail senders? If you send a test HTML message to yourself and reply a few times, do you see colored quoted text?

I also noticed that in Send Options > Format Text, the box is checked for "Send messages as plain text if possible". Not sure if that has anything to do with this situation, but I would think it would be preferable to send in HTML, so I am wondering if I should uncheck the box?

more options

If your default format is HTML, in the Composition & Addressing section of Account Settings, leaving the box checked means that a message will be sent as plain text if there's no HTML-specific formatting. It's a matter of personal taste - some people abhor HTML email, others have no opinion.

As for the quoted text colors, I wonder if this is by default only on OS X.

more options

mraya77 said

Also, I am now having reservations about using TB because I sent myself a couple test emails from my business email to my personal email. Second email was sent 5 minutes after the first. Neither email has shown up in my personal email inbox and it's been over an hour now. Both emails did, however, instantly show up in my Mac Mail Inbox and my online Yahoo website Inbox. Now, I have done more test emails and they did go through successfully to my TB Inbox. It was just those two particular emails that have not gone through to my TB Inbox. And now I am nervous about using TB because I wonder if there might be future emails that don't find their way into my TB Inbox. Interestingly, around this same time period when I sent those two emails, I received two duplicate emails from a friend of mine. However, in my Mac Mail Inbox and online Yahoo website Inbox, the email is there but only once (no duplicate). So, maybe my TB app was going through a lapse in proper functionality at that time, for some reason. I don't expect you to have the answer to this mystery but do you have any guesses as to what might be going on with that?

If you have accounts on multiple devices or programs, make sure they are all set up as IMAP, since the default behavior with POP setups is to delete mail from the server after download to the client. So, if mail is first read on a POP setup, it probably won't be seen on other devices, while IMAP setups sync mail across devices and apps.

more options

sfhowes said

mraya77 said
Also, I am now having reservations about using TB because I sent myself a couple test emails from my business email to my personal email. Second email was sent 5 minutes after the first. Neither email has shown up in my personal email inbox and it's been over an hour now. Both emails did, however, instantly show up in my Mac Mail Inbox and my online Yahoo website Inbox. Now, I have done more test emails and they did go through successfully to my TB Inbox. It was just those two particular emails that have not gone through to my TB Inbox. And now I am nervous about using TB because I wonder if there might be future emails that don't find their way into my TB Inbox. Interestingly, around this same time period when I sent those two emails, I received two duplicate emails from a friend of mine. However, in my Mac Mail Inbox and online Yahoo website Inbox, the email is there but only once (no duplicate). So, maybe my TB app was going through a lapse in proper functionality at that time, for some reason. I don't expect you to have the answer to this mystery but do you have any guesses as to what might be going on with that?

If you have accounts on multiple devices or programs, make sure they are all set up as IMAP, since the default behavior with POP setups is to delete mail from the server after download to the client. So, if mail is first read on a POP setup, it probably won't be seen on other devices, while IMAP setups sync mail across devices and apps.

RIght, I understand.