This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

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

Hotmail stopped working, no TB changes. Error "Login to server imap-mail.outlook.com failed" It gives options to retry, enter new password, or cancel. SOLVED

  • 25 cavab
  • 28 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by Chuck946

more options

Thunderbird just stopped working with hotmail. No changes on my part. Pop-up message reads "Login to server imap-mail.outlook.com failed" It gives me options to retry, enter new password, or cancel. I can log in through hotmail.com just fine, so it is not a password issue. Looks like either Microsoft or Mozilla changed something. What do I do?

Thunderbird just stopped working with hotmail. No changes on my part. Pop-up message reads "Login to server imap-mail.outlook.com failed" It gives me options to retry, enter new password, or cancel. I can log in through hotmail.com just fine, so it is not a password issue. Looks like either Microsoft or Mozilla changed something. What do I do?

Modified by Wayne Mery

Chosen solution

Thanks to everyone who posted and worked to find an answer regarding this issue. From what I see, it appears the issue has been resolved. I have been traveling and unable to test it myself, but I'm hopeful. I am going to post this as resolved until I have other information.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (5)

more options

> MOZ should be better tuned to the ripples that could upset their users.

Mozilla doesn't provide developers - a volunteer community maintains Thunderbird.

I don't understand what you think is being done in secrecy - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1286620 is the only recent bug report we have mentioning hotmail.

more options

Wayne Mery said

> MOZ should be better tuned to the ripples that could upset their users. Mozilla doesn't provide developers - a volunteer community maintains Thunderbird. I don't understand what you think is being done in secrecy - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1286620 is the only recent bug report we have mentioning hotmail.

Oh so Mozilla and Thunderbird just showed up from no where. no. This is the same for Hadoop and Linux. The "community" has an obligation to all users. The dev team has that most priority of basic function to sustain the "community". If not, it is a dead zone and should not be promoted to the masses as such without stipulations in bold. I did not think anything was being done in secrecy. MY POINT exactly. Every 3rd party was aware of what was coming, if MOZ is a deadzone, then it needs to state that to each and every potential user upfront before access. Otherwise, it has a responsibility to the whole - and not blame MS. Open source has a responsibility whether you fear it or not.

more options

Sorry you feel ignored.

The fact is, many hotmail users are having trouble, not just Thunderbird users. Yes, many Thunderbird users are experiencing trouble, but most didn't change anything in Thunderbird. So where then do you think the problem was caused?

Users are suffering, and justafiably looking for answers, and blame. But as best we can determine, MS simply screwed up big time. https://www.product-reviews.net/down/hotmail-outlook-problems/ https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/hotmail-proxy-errors.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/22/hotmailoutlook_titsup/

If none of the solutions others have posted work for you - like https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1147439 - then please post your issue in a new topic.

For anyone having password issues, where the password you stored in Thunderbird is no longer working, make sure you write down all your passwords at tools | options | security | passwords | saved passwords | show. Then visit your Thunderbird profile directory at help | troubleshooting | show folder, shut down Thunderbird, rename logins.json and key3.db, restart Thunderbird.

more options

I'd like to thank the Tunderbird commnity and developers. I had trouble trying to login to Hotmail with Thunderbird and felt frustrated like everyone else in this situation. BUT...let's compare Microsoft (a big campus with lots of paid staff) to the Thunderbird "community" - volunteers all, as I understand it. From Microsoft, I got no notice of the problem, no forums that were clear and detailed enough to know if they were talking about my problem or a different problem, and no suggested fixes. From Thunderbird community, I got 2 suggestions for fixes (1 was inapplicable to the recent crisis--namely, turn off 2 part-verification on the Microsoft site, but one was right on--namely, get an alias to "outlook.com" instead of logging into "hotmail.com"...which immediately worked. Unless someone can actually cite an announcement in advance by Microsoft that was available to the Thunderbird community and ignored by that community, my feeling is that this community has been more responsive to the users than the Microsoft Corp....(which is after all why I turned to Thunderbird in the first place after Microsoft announced that the classic views of email were no longer available in their free clients when used with hotmail accounts.) So...I hated the lost time, regret the frustration, believe at this point that Microsoft did make arbitrary and unannounced changes that caused problems for Thunderbird and others---and that the help I got that was useful in this awful situatiojn came from Thunderbird's community.

more options

Seçilmiş Həll

Thanks to everyone who posted and worked to find an answer regarding this issue. From what I see, it appears the issue has been resolved. I have been traveling and unable to test it myself, but I'm hopeful. I am going to post this as resolved until I have other information.

  1. 1
  2. 2