Netscape Mail has stopped working

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Netscape Mail has stopped working

Postby pterodaustro » Wed 11 Feb, 2004 1:32 pm

I've encountered a problem with Netscape Mail (NS 7.1) with which I hope somebody can help me.

Every time I try to get new mail, I get the message

"The PASS command did not succeed. Mail server mail.btinternet.com responded: Bad authentication"

I've checked and confirmed all my details including server settings and password with my ISP (I should add they work just fine with Outlook Express), and I can't think of any changes which might have caused this - I was literally getting mail one day and not the next (although I can still send mail OK). I've also tried reinstalling Netscape to no effect.

Anyone know what might be going on, or at the very least can anyone tell me how to remove Netscape completely so I can be sure I'm doing a clean install?

Any advice gratefully received!
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Postby Fulvio » Wed 11 Feb, 2004 2:52 pm

You seem to suffer from the reverse of what is in this thread: http://sillydog.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4622
The fact that it is sporadic makes me wonder, if it is not your server, taking the day off.
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Postby pterodaustro » Thu 12 Feb, 2004 2:58 pm

I think it's a problem with NS 7.1. I followed the thread you suggested, installed Mozilla 1.6 and hey presto - problem solved!

Many thanks for your help - much appreciated!
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Postby Don_HH2K » Mon 17 May, 2004 7:57 pm

Is there any way to be able to check multiple WebMail accounts in Messenger. For example, if I am connected to account A and try to connect to Account B, I get a message that says "failed to connect to server imap.mail.netcenter.net" or somethink like that if I can remember correctly.
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Postby Kate » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 1:53 am

I am having the same or simliar problem as the first poster in this thread. This happened suddenly for no apparent reason. My ISP is NO help at all. They kind of tried, but they're clueless.

Netscape mail cannot connect to my ISP. I get this message each time I open Nmail (with a yellow sign and ALERT!): The PASS command did not succeed. Mail server mail.comcast.net responded: directory status: BAD PASSWORD

*groan*

I have tried just about everything I know how to do to fix this: gone into preferences and made 100% sure all my server settings are absolutely correct (according to comcast's requirements). Enabled and disabled user/password settings, deleted passwords to comcast in password manager, read through all the threads here about similar problems (and got hugely confused :sadr:)... it still does the same thing. Etc., etc. Cannot get or send mail, of course, still have to use the comcast poop webmail.

If I can figure out a way to get all my e-mail folders saved somewhere (can't forward them to my spare dialup addy since I can't send or receive in Netscape mail), I will uninstall and reinstall Netscape and start over. That would have to take care of it, yes?

Or I could just ditch Netscape and get Mozilla, but then I will lose all my bookmarks and settings and saved e-mail.
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Postby Fulvio » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 11:03 am

Kate, you are bringing up an entirely different problem, and you will need first some basic Netscape/Mozilla education before proceeding. Since this take a bit of time to explain, I will refer one to the NS7 part of Ramona's Solutions. http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/index6.html
As for webmail, I have had no problem with up to three, but the password must be the IM password for all of them. If you use different password for each, don't.
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Postby Kate » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 11:16 am

Fulvio wrote:Kate, you are bringing up an entirely different problem, and you will need first some basic Netscape/Mozilla education before proceeding. Since this take a bit of time to explain, I will refer one to the NS7 part of Ramona's Solutions. http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/index6.html

Thank you. :) I don't see a solution to my problem there, though.

Fulvio wrote:As for webmail, I have had no problem with up to three, but the password must be the IM password for all of them. If you use different password for each, don't.

I don't have any problem with comcast's webmail program other than hating their interface and lack of features and having to log in and out and... all sorts of stupid things. :lol:
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Postby Fulvio » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 1:11 pm

Kate,
I will handle the the last two paragraphs.
First: the uninstall exercise (I call it that, because it no more than that) is no reason to correct your problems. Everything you have is located in your Profile, from password file to mail account, and those are not removed if you uninstall the program.
In theory, if you uninstall Netscape, and install Mozilla1.7.1, you can use the same profile, and nothing is lost. Now, why would mozilla be an improvement beats me.
The Comcast site gives good info about setting up, amazingly good. http://faq.comcast.net/faq/answer.jsp?n ... y=Netscape
there is more at: http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=32522

At this point, I can say that there is no match between username and password, and there may be something in Password Manager conflicting with what you have. Are you being asked for a password?
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Last edited by Fulvio on Thu 15 Jul, 2004 4:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Kate » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 1:34 pm

Fulvio wrote:First: the uninstall exercise (I call it that, because it no more than that) is no reason to correct your problems. Everything you have is located in your Profile, from password file to mail account, and those are not removed if you uninstall the program.
Yes, I know that unless I obliterate everything, an uninstall will not help. But if I am to completely wipe all aspects of Netscape from my machine, I need to somehow save my stored e-mail first. Don't need to save it as formatted, but do need to save it for info contained therein.

Fulvio wrote:In theory, if you uninstall Netscape, and install Mozilla1.7.1, you can use the same profile, and nothing is lost. Now, why would mozilla be an improvement beats me.
Beats you because it would work (does it?) or because you don't think Mozilla is an improvement over Netscape? I'm clueless here. :)

Fulvio wrote:The Comcast site gives good info about setting up, amazingly good. http://faq.comcast.net/faq/answer.jsp?n ... y=Netscape
there is more at: http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=32522
Yes, I know. I had no problem setting up my Netscape mail program back when I first strted using comcast a few months ago. No problems until, as the first poster in this thread said, "...I can't think of any changes which might have caused this - I was literally getting mail one day and not the next..." I did have a bug or virus which I had got rid of, but the Netscape mail still worked after that. It stopped working -- and I should have mentioned this at first! -- after I had enabled and then disabled e-mail forwarding on comcast. I enabled e-mail forwarding on comcast as I went on vacation, disabled it when I got back, and since then the problem occurred. I think. Comcast can find no problem with my getting mail since I can get and send it through their webmail program, so it is a Netscape problem, I assume.

Fulvio wrote:At this point, I can say that there is no match between username and passport, and there may be something in Password Manager conflicting with what you have. Are you being asked for a password?
What is "passport"? I am not being asked for a password. I am not being asked for anything. And as I said, I had already cleared from Password Manager everything and anything to do with comcast. I just suddenly began getting the popup I posted in my first post in this topic: The PASS command did not succeed. Mail server mail.comcast.net responded: directory status: BAD PASSWORD

Thanks again for your help and patience. :)
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Postby akbash » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 3:46 pm

I had the same problem a few months ago, and it was with Comcast mail. (I use the Thunderbird mail client, which is probably identical to NS7 and Moz1.7 in all important aspects.) I use stored mail passwords, and it inexplicably started telling me my password was incorrect. I'm still not sure what happened or how I fixed it, if indeed what I did had anything to do with the problem going away.

I let it go on for a couple of hours. Then I did only two things that I know of: I stopped trying to read my mail for perhaps an hour (I thought that might give some hypothetical shared server/client state time to clear out), and I'm pretty sure I renamed my saved passwords file (<eight random digits>.s in your profile directory, while Netscape is not running of course) to force the mail client to ask me for my password once again (I thought that the saved passwords might have been corrupted). Clearing saved passwords in the password manager may have the same effect, but that's not what I did.

The problem went away immediately. I still don't know what happened. The new saved passwords appeared to be identical to the ones I had hidden by renaming the file, so it would appear that my passwords were not corrupt. Really nothing makes sense. But it's all better now and I haven't had that problem since.
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Postby Fulvio » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 4:52 pm

Kate,
try to do what "akbash" did. It makes as much sense as anything else.
Passport? I was trying to leave the country after all the strange happenings :wink: People make mistakes.
I hope that you can fix everything, but I meant that if you try to access your mail and you saved the password, you could either go through or be told that it is a bad password.
Now, if you did not save the password, I need a passport.
Again, uninstalling, and then imnstall a Mozilla would not correct this crazy problem, but a new profile would.
Akbash, did you rename the password file samenumbers.bad or something else?
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Postby akbash » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 7:12 pm

Fulvio wrote:samenumbers.bad
That'll do. Any name different from the original will prevent Netscape from finding the file, and force a password reset.
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Postby Ramona » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 7:41 pm

Kate,

Renaming the password is your best bet, and excellent advice from akbash.

If no joy, then open your mail using your ISP's Web interface, and look for recent spam, or perhaps an email with a large attachment, or just a large email.

Could be that the checking for messages and downloading of Mail has a conflict. The ISP tries to download a large message into the inbox and the server is trying to log in at the same time, thus an "authorization error" occurred. Try increasing the time interval for checking messages. If you are using 5 minutes, then increase it to 20 minutes, etc.

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Postby Kate » Thu 15 Jul, 2004 10:40 pm

I am not explaining myself well here, I'm sorry. Let me try some more (but can I have my passport back first ;))...

This has been going on for weeks. It's not a matter of leaving it alone for an hour or a day, unfortunately.

I never set up the Nmail program with a master password, if that's what you guys are talking about. It has never asked me for a password. I did already delete all the comcast-related passwords in Netscape Password Manager.

"Again, uninstalling, and then imnstall a Mozilla would not correct this crazy problem, but a new profile would." Ah, so do you mean that I could wipe my profile from Netscape and start over and that would take care of things? Isn't that what I'd be doing anyway with a full uninstall/reinstall? And how would I be able to save my e-mails if I did any of that? Is there a way you guys know of?

Also, I have no spam in comcast's webmail, never have. No large e-mails either, I clean stuff out once a day at least, always have.

Just to be sure, are you guys telling me to rename my Netscape password (which doesn't exist) or my ISP account password?

And can you tell I'm having a hard time understanding all this .... I don't get half of what you're all saying. My apologies, and thanks again for your patience. :)
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Postby akbash » Fri 16 Jul, 2004 1:14 pm

Okay let's try this without letting our hands leave our wrists, then.
  1. Edit Menu -> Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Passwords -> Manage Stored Passwords. Remove your mail account passwords. I hope you have them memorized.
  2. Next, Edit Menu -> Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings -> Server Settings, and be certain "Check for new messages every XX minutes" is unchecked.
  3. Don't try to access your mail for an hour or so.
  4. Then, try and read your mail.
This isn't quite the same thing that I recommended earlier, but it may be close enough.
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