yeah, I hate those messages, anything could be wrong and it comes back to that old chestnut.

It may well be the server names or port that is in error. Or it may be that your DNS entries for the web site have not propagated to your DNS server yet.

Thanks for your reply.

I'm also having problems when trying to set it up as a new account on gmail too. My web person isn't being all that helpful as they are not familiar with mozilla and it works when they set it up on gmail. How long do the DNS entries take as it has been set up for a couple of weeks now. What kind of server names or port errors would there be?

Please explain who is the email provider you're trying to set up an account for in Thunderbird.

In case of Gmail see https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6009563

I am using Thunderbird. I really do not understand the message - if I am setting up a new account, I have just SET the username and password - how could they be wrong?

wmorling said

I am using Thunderbird. I really do not understand the message - if I am setting up a new account, I have just SET the username and password - how could they be wrong?

You are copying your setting for your mail provider into Thundebird. So you type them in wrong and they are then Wrong. For instance you password was MozillaMessaging and you typed MozillamEessaging

Or it may be there are settings that need to be changed on your providers web site. Like there are for Outlook.com, Google, Yahoo for instance and you have not made those changes to the site refused your login.

Or your anti virus think you are getting mail and makes a complete hash for what was supposed to be an account creation process.

We ask questions to try and work out which issues may apply to you. If you do not answer those question, expect a very poor result. We will not ask more than once usually before giving up and moving to the next person seeking assistance.

I am having this same problem. I have tried setting up this account in T-bird for the past two hours with no luck. I even typed the password into a Word document and copied it and pasted it into yahoo and it worked, but when I pasted it into T-bird, so I know that I'm not typing it two different ways. I still get the error message. I've run out of ideas.

It is a yahoo email address that I've had for a long time. This morning about three hours ago, I changed the password on it. Before I tried putting it in T-bird. I can log in using the new password on the yahoo website with no problem. My new password is 16 digits long with letters and numbers. Is the length a problem for T-bird?

Thanks for your help. Oh, almost forgot, Toshiba 64-bit laptop running Windows 10 Home

I have a number, maybe 5, email addresses, including one other yahoo address set up in T-bird and have never had to make any changes on the server side. I have Avast Antivirus and how would I know what it thinks it's getting? Here's an update, I turned off my Antivirus and still get the same message.

morlaine said

I am having this same problem.

No your are having a problem setting up an account. I have no idea if it is the same one.

You are aware Yahoo have created new hoops to jump through on their web site, including a less secure apps setting you must set before you can access an account via a mail client? Lot of new stuff from a company that is reeling from the fact that their entire customer data base has been hacked.

The second obviously questionable item on your list is avast. A particularly bad example of an anti virus program that stops mail moving and breaks security so it can supposedly assume the role of a trussed SSL certifying authority.

See the notes we have collected over the years about avast here https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Antivirus_Related_Performance_Issues#AVAST

Just as an aside, typing anything into a word document and then copy and pasting it is probably a very very bad idea as word places the information on the clipboard in quite a number of formats and it is up to the receiving application to guess which it should use. Everything from an image to plain text and HTML, RTF and Word format for example. If you are going to do those sorts of test with things like passwords. Windows has notepad. A plain text editor where what goes on the clipboard is no surprise. Every user of windows should have a look at a clipboard viewer application at some point like http://www.freeclipboardviewer.com/ Once they understand just how many formats data is copied in, they come to understand why paste is sometimes a bit of a lottery.

You never know, it might have been the same account.  :-)

In my previous email, I did say I turned Avast off and still had the same problem. I've had Avast for years and have rarely had a problem with it. And Avast wasn't the problem in this instance.

I didn't know that Yahoo had changed its security options and didn't think about it because I have had one yahoo email account in T-bird for years and didn't have to do anything special to set it up.

Thanks for telling my about the additional security in Yahoo. It wasn't easy to find. I finally googled how to do the setup for email clients and was able to find it.

Log into the email account on the yahoo server, click on the account name (upper right corner), then account info, then on account security (left side of screen), and then toward the bottom you will find an option called "Allow apps that use less secure sign in". Turn that option on. They keep asking if you are sure so keep saying yes. Then you can go back to T-bird and set up this email address with no problems.

Thanks for your response. It helped me fix my problem.