Hotmail: Errors Retrieving Messages

[etienne53]

I continue to have problems retrieving messages from outlook.com. However, I tried something that seemed to work so I want to pass it on. I edited the account and changed the "Server Type" from IMAP to "Hotmail/Outlook". This seemed to fix the problem. I have no idea why or if there is some downside to changing the server type.

[mjs]

I continue to have problems retrieving messages from outlook.com. However, I tried something that seemed to work so I want to pass it on. I edited the account and changed the "Server Type" from IMAP to "Hotmail/Outlook". This seemed to fix the problem. I have no idea why or if there is some downside to changing the server type.

Thanks for posting your results. This is because the IMAP Servers for Hotmail/Outlook have been having problems lately and by switching to "Webmail", that is using the WebMail plugin ("Server type" = "Hotmail/Outlook) you are NOT using the problematic MSN Servers any more. This option to get around the current IMAP Server issue has been reported in this topic.

Also in this topic are the down-side issues to using "Webmail" which is that attachments do not display and you cannot send messages using the default settings because the "WebMail" plugin is not supported using the current (newest) Hotmail/Outlook interface. To get around using the "WebMail" plugin (for incoming to reduce errors at this time) and still be able to send MSN account messages is to use "SMTP" for the "Send option" in the accounts "Send Mail" page (edit account and click on "Send Mail" tab to get to this page) which will allow messages to be sent successfully while using the "Webmail" plugin for incoming messages (which is what you have done by switching to the "WebMail" protocol by changing your "Server type" to "Hotmail/Outlook" which as you have found helps mitigate the current rash of MSN email account errors due to using their IMAP Servers).

There is an ongoing topic in the announcements board regarding the Hotmail/Outlook IMAP errors that explains most of this, you will also find in this topic that using POP3 does a good job at mitigating the error issues caused by the MSN IMAP Servers (perhaps not quite as good as "WebMail" admittedly, but keep in mind POP3 has the advantage of displaying attachments) so there is that option too. Either option, "WebMail" or POP3, will avoid using the MSN IMAP Servers thus help resolve the current error situation so it's your choice.

Also you can click HERE which will take you to a relevant post by Jeff in this topic at the bottom of the previous page that discusses this as well.

[rvail317]

For comparison purposes, there's a new build of the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, v. 52.0:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details ... final.html

[Jeff]

Thanks for the tip, rvail317.

I just installed it and it doesn't appear to have any secret sauce. I first looked through the changes, and there were a couple mentions of imap caching, but nothing that otherwise seemed pertinent. Initial attempt to access a hotmail/imap account seemed as slow as usual, but I'll do logging later to see exactly what it's doing.

[edit: meant to ask -- have you noticed any improvement in this latest TB version? For that matter: have you noticed that TB is slower accessing Hotmail in the past week or so than before?]

I think I mentioned this before, although this is what I want to re-confirm with the logging: Thunderbird is getting the same random disconnects, it's just that it keeps trying. I've been experimenting with this approach in PP today. My philosophy has always been: since PP is designed to run in the background, a random error is inconsequential so it's not necessary to retry immediately. This ongoing Hotmail issue definitely changes that.

[rvail317]

Tried outlook.com email via Thunderbird (current build v. 52.0) vs. PopPeeper (current build 4.3).
Thunderbird email seems to be working okay (IMAP); PopPeeper shows errors with both Hotmail.com & Outlook.com (IMAP) accounts:
--- Version ---
OS: Windows 10 (x64)
POP Peeper: 4.3.0.0
Webmail: 4.3.1.0
SSL: 1.0.2.10
IMAP: 4.3.0.0
SendMail: 4.3.0.0

--- Error ---
Hotmail [1000: IMAP] ['imap-mail.outlook.com' (993) SSL: 1] [Smtp: 'smtp-mail.outlook.com' (587) SSL: 2]
Error (Send)

Outlook [1000: IMAP] ['imap-mail.outlook.com' (993) SSL: 1] [Smtp: 'smtp-mail.outlook.com' (587) SSL: 2]
Error (Send)

[Matthew Wai]

My Hotmail with imap-mail.outlook.com and smtp-mail.outlook.com is working fine today.

do you have POP and IMAP option enabled in the Client account Options setting?

It can now send mail with the option enabled.

[mjs]

My Hotmail with imap-mail.outlook.com and smtp-mail.outlook.com is working fine today.

do you have POP and IMAP option enabled in the Client account Options setting?

It can now send mail with the option enabled.

Good news, there should not be any problems sending messages using IMAP. As to receiving messages without errors using IMAP, that is also certainly good news, it may be that the MS Outlook.com IMAP Servers are now doing a better job in your area, hopefully this will continue to be the case.

[Matthew Wai]

there should not be any problems sending messages using IMAP.

In my previous post, the first sentence referred to IMAP, while the second referred to Webmail. Sorry for the confusion. However, I just disabled 'POP and IMAP' mentioned in this post, but I can still send mail via both Webmail and IMAP.

[mjs]

there should not be any problems sending messages using IMAP.

In my previous post, the first sentence referred to IMAP, while the second referred to Webmail. Sorry for the confusion. However, I just disabled 'POP and IMAP' mentioned in this post, but I can still send mail via both Webmail and IMAP.

Okay, I get it, but from what I understand if you are using IMAP for your "Server type" in PP and if the "POP3 and IMAP" setting is disabled in your Outlook (Hotmail) account on the web then you might get an "Error (Quit)" error for PP incoming mail. This is because for the actual error:
"-ERR Authentication failure: unknown user name or bad password. [Error="UserDisabled" AuthResult=27 Proxy...prod.outlook.com:1995:SSL]" PP will report the error "Error (Quit)". Have you been receiving messages successfully with this account?

And as far as sending mail, if you use Webmail ("Hotmail/Outlook") and for this account do not have the "Send option" in the "Send mail" tab set to "SMTP" but instead it is set to "Webmail" and then try to send mail you will get a "Error (0)" error when sending a message and the message would then remain in your PP outbox where it will stay until you change the "Send option" setting to "SMTP" at which time the message will successfully send from your PP outbox. Below are examples:

The error you get sending messages in Outlook.com with "Server type" set to "Homtail/Outlook" (Webmail) with the "Send option" set to "WebMail" (instead of ("SMTP")

The error generated will be "error (0)" and message will remain in PP outbox until "Sent option" is changed to "SMTP".

PP Outbox error 0.png (6.33 KiB) Viewed 9407 times

While testing this I found that attempting to send the message from the PP Outbox after changing the "Send option" to "SMTP" I continued to get this error: "Send Mail: Login Error: Auth XOAUTH2
Server Returned: 5.0.0 OAuth failed: OAuth authentication failed due to Expired token. Code -2147184088 (#535)" until I removed oAuth2 for this account that had been previously set when the account had been previously using IMAP. After removing oAuth2 then the outgoing message was sent successfully without this error.

[Matthew Wai]

if you are using IMAP for your "Server type" in PP and if the "POP3 and IMAP" setting is disabled in your Outlook (Hotmail) account on the web then you might get an "Error (Quit)" error for PP incoming mail. This is because for the actual error:
"-ERR Authentication failure: unknown user name or bad password. [Error="UserDisabled" AuthResult=27 Proxy...prod.outlook.com:1995:SSL]" PP will report the error "Error (Quit)". Have you been receiving messages successfully with this account?

Yes, my Yahoo just received a message sent from my Hotmail using IMAP and OAuth2 with 'POP and IMAP' disabled on this page. Might it have something to do with OAuth2?

[Matthew Wai]

if you are using IMAP for your "Server type" in PP and if the "POP3 and IMAP" setting is disabled in your Outlook (Hotmail) account on the web then you might get an "Error (Quit)" error for PP incoming mail. This is because for the actual error:
"-ERR Authentication failure: unknown user name or bad password. [Error="UserDisabled" AuthResult=27 Proxy...prod.outlook.com:1995:SSL]" PP will report the error "Error (Quit)". Have you been receiving messages successfully with this account?

Yes, my Yahoo just received a message sent from my Hotmail using IMAP and OAuth2 with 'POP and IMAP' disabled on this page. Might it have something to do with OAuth2?

Okay, then you are fortunate, I think Outlook.com can be somewhat inconsistent regarding this error and a few other errors for that matter as well, which is why I said "you might get an 'Error (Quit)' error for PP incoming mail". I have gotten the error in Outlook POP3 accounts for not setting the "POP3 and IMAP" setting in the Outlook.com Email client setting on the web, but I think that other times that error may not get generated as well. I just tested as you described using two Outlook accounts one using POP3 and the other using IMAP, with the "POP3 and IMAP" setting disabled in each of the two Email Clients options on the web and did not get the error in either account just as you did not. All I can say is that I have gotten this error in the past for two different accounts and I recall that other accounts had not produced the error in the same circumstances. So you may be okay, but if you do get the "Error (Quit)" error under this scenario in the future then you will know what to do (enable the "POP3 and IMAP" in the Email Client account on the web).

I don't think MSN is that consistent regarding errors in any event, for example I have gotten that "error (0)" error sending messages using "Webmail" for the Send Option like in the example I posted above but did not need to remove oAuth2 in the past to get the send to work but this time for that example I did have to do this.

[Matthew Wai]

the MS Outlook.com IMAP Servers are now doing a better job in your area

I am in Hong Kong, China, while rvail317, whose POP Peeper shows errors, should be elsewhere.
It goes to show that the problem lies in servers rather than POP Peeper.

[Matthew Wai]

the MS Outlook.com IMAP Servers are now doing a better job in your area

I am in Hong Kong, China, while rvail317, whose POP Peeper shows errors, should be elsewhere.
It goes to show that the problem lies in servers rather than POP Peeper.

Excellent observation and point!

[rvail317]

the MS Outlook.com IMAP Servers are now doing a better job in your area

I am in Hong Kong, China, while rvail317, whose POP Peeper shows errors, should be elsewhere.
It goes to show that the problem lies in servers rather than POP Peeper.

Then explain why?: Thunderbird can use IMAP without any errors; PopPeeper still showing intermittent errors.
Side note: outlook.com's web interface has undergone some minor changes within the last day or so.
My inbox now shows "Focused" as a subcategory of the Inbox, as an example; which wasn't there yesterday.
However, there has been absolutely no functional errors when using the outlook.com web interface. And: no errors when using Thunderbird (IMAP).
Only when using PopPeeper (IMAP) are there occasional errors. As I'm typing this reply, there's currently no "yellow bang" error showing on the Windows Taskbar PP icon.
When comparing with Thunderbird 52.0 yesterday, there was a "yellow bang" error at the same time with the PP icon, but Thunderbird was retrieving outlook.com emails without any error. So: although outlook.com may, or may not, be partially at fault for PP's errors, it would seem that something on PP's side of the equation is also in need of correction.

[mjs]

Let me try to answer your concerns....

Actually TB will have similar IMAP errors as well, the difference is that in the case of TB errors the user will not be that aware of the errors because on the surface TB does not provide the user with this error information the same as PP does. I don't use TB, but there is likely a method to view error logs which should demonstrate this.

What TB does is recycle attempts to read messages when errors happen to occur and because this occurs behind the scene this is not apparent. On the other hand PP provides added transparency to the user by displaying the error after each Mail Check is completed. Rest assured, TB is not except from Email Client Server issues or any other type of email interface protocol errors that can happen from time to time for that matter, the difference is that TB keeps what's going regarding these errors on behind the scenes is all as opposed to PP providing information to the users in the event messages may at various times be delayed due to persistent errors.

Personally I prefer the added transparency and awareness that PP provides the user as far as what is really happening behind the scenes when errors do occur.

That's pretty much it from my perspective, simplified.... Other members of The Esumsoft Team may have additional information to add to this.

[Matthew Wai]

At the moment, my Live Mail with IMAP can retrieve messages, while my Hotmail with IMAP cannot.
Both of them are shown as Outlook Mail online, and their settings on POP Peeper are exactly the same.
What do you think?

[Jeff]

Yes, exactly as lakrsrool said. As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to double-check the logs in TB. I just opened TB (with logging enabled), and it immediately tried to connect to my Hotmail account. It was going *relatively* quickly, but it got stuck for quite a while on "Opening folder INBOX". The logs tell me it finally finished 4 minutes later (no new messages, this is the amount of time it took simply because of the way Hotmail has been).

The logs also tell me that TB had to login 3 times to accomplish this. This is because Hotmail is constantly disconnecting the session. The status in TB never told me that it was trying to login again, it just kept the "Opening folder INBOX" status.

Speaking of which, I'm not sure if TB shows the status bar by default -- it's under View / Toolbars -> Status bar. Otherwise, the only other indication that it's working is the circle-chasing-its-tail icon in the tab.

For those that are interested, here is my abbreviated log of TB. Many lines are removed, but pay attention to the timestamps -- it should *not* take as long as it does to simply access an inbox with 400 messages:

Code: Select all

2017-04-05 18:50:26.778000 UTC - 5456[1c24bcd0]: ImapThreadMainLoop entering [this=1c1d2800]
2017-04-05 18:50:37.445000 UTC - 5456[1c24bcd0]: try to log in
2017-04-05 18:50:43.476000 UTC - 5456[1c24bcd0]: login succeeded
2017-04-05 18:53:41.540000 UTC - 6860[cc3db00]: cb86000:imap-mail.outlook.com:NA:SendData: 1 capability
2017-04-05 18:53:41.626000 UTC - 6860[cc3db00]: try to log in
2017-04-05 18:53:45.370000 UTC - 4408[cc3e040]: try to log in
2017-04-05 18:53:50.138000 UTC - 4408[cc3e040]: login succeeded
2017-04-05 18:54:48.660000 UTC - 6860[cc3db00]: cb86000:imap-mail.outlook.com:S-INBOX:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 10 OK FETCH completed.

If you want to log TB, here's the script that I use (you'll need to edit the path of where you want to save the logfile). I recommend starting TB first and selecting your Hotmail inbox, then close TB and run this:

Code: Select all

set NSPR_LOG_MODULES=IMAP:5,timestamp
set NSPR_LOG_FILE=e:\tbird_log.txt
start thunderbird

Also, I've been hesitant to include this, but there are third party sites that confirm the problem does occur in other email apps:
http://downdetector.com/status/outlook/ ... at-outlook
Here are some of the comments (that are specifically mentioning imap) over the last few days:

- The msn IMAP server on Outlook is again not working for the last one hour.
- Outlook.com IMAP has been so slow the past few days that it's worthless.
- Nothing but send/receive errors on all computers accessing @outlook.com emails via Outlook 2010.
- msn IMAP server used by Outlook is down again this morning. Can't get any messages either through Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird (which are on different computers).
- IMAP connection for Hotmail using Thunderbird on laptop seems to be slow and non responsive.
- Currently seems to be down when trying to login through IMAP on Thunderbird.
- Cannot retrieve messages with Thunderbird. Either connection times out or it takes a really, really loooong time. Tried to connect to Outlook with two other new email clients for the first time and both failed.

That being said, efforts are being made to improve POP Peeper's responsiveness to these types of errors...

[Matthew Wai]

People have reported problems with Outlook at http://downdetector.com/status/outlook

[Jeff]

At the moment, my Live Mail with IMAP can retrieve messages, while my Hotmail with IMAP cannot.
Both of them are shown as Outlook Mail online, and their settings on POP Peeper are exactly the same.
What do you think?

I've been suspecting that different accounts may be impacted differently. It's likely not as black&white as whether it's @livemail.com or @outlook.com, but data for different accounts will be stored on different servers. Also, the number of messages in each account could be a factor. Some of the errors will occur while retrieving the list of emails, so if there are fewer emails, that "list" will be smaller; so, the quicker that PP can get in and out, the less chance of hotmail disconnecting. However, a good portion of errors occur just while connecting or logging in, so it's not entirely based on how many messages you have. Technically, I'd say "connection" errors are fairly uncommon, but many errors occur soon after, even before logging in (ie. "SSL connection failed").

[etienne53]

Guys, I hate to say this because I've used Pop Pepper for years and really like it, but not only am I still having trouble with Pop Peeper with my Hotmail account, I'm NOT having trouble with Mailbird fetching email from my Hotmail account. If the trouble lies with Microsoft's servers, shouldn't the problem be universal?