Thunderbird connection to outlook.com fails

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All,

 

Sometime this past Sunday (2/12/23) my Thunderbird client connection was refused by Outlook.com (server path outlook.office.365.com). This connection had been working continuously for about three months, using IMAP and the discovered server settings. I fiddled a bit with the server name settings (tried outlook.live.com, the path that I get using Edge to open my xxxxx[@]outlook.com account, and this also failed so I set it back to the discovered name). I also changed the auth type to Oauth2 which failed. Then I deleted the account from Thunderbird and attempted to recreate the connection via the new account wizard; the connection was refused, saying there was something wrong with the account name or the password. I know the login and password are correct, because I tested them by editing the account properties, which required me to re-authenticate myself.

Does anyone know whether MS modified the server configuration to block IMAP, or maybe block connections from any or all 3rd-party clients?

My OS is Win10, 22H2, fully patched through January, and my Thunderbird client is 64-bit and fully patched.

My last career was managing Windows servers and clients (and Mac clients with a few Linux and AIX servers mixed in to spice things up) in an Active Directory environment, administering a child domain in a major research university. I am well aware of MS’ propensity for mendacity, and poor record of advising folks in advance of significant changes at their end. 🙁

TIA,

Loel

Moderator Edit: Actual e-Mail address edited. Please do not put personal information in posts. It is not secure.

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I provide support for an older email client.  There have recently been numerous reports from folks who can no longer access their office.365.com account.  We are certain that it has to do with MS now requiring OAUTH2 connections, which this email client does not support.  I wish I could tell you how to fix it but all I can suggest is to direct your attention to troubleshooting the OAUTH2 connection.

Also confirm that “fully patched” Thunderbird means running the most recent version.

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You may have run into MS 2FA. See the Newsletter article for details.
https://www.askwoody.com/newsletter/where-to-store-your-onenote-notebooks/#software

cheers, Paul

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All,

Thank you to both Paul and Peabody (I didn’t need the Wayback Machine this time…) for their replies and suggestions.

The situation has been resolved as of about 30 minutes ago, although it’s likely not something I did, nor is it likely something in Thunderbird. I was running ver 102.6.nn when the incident began, and updated to 102.7.nn on Tuesday, which did not fix the problem. I updated to ver 102.8.0 this AM and was able to connect to my outlook.com account using Oauth2 instead of the suggested Normal Password (which had been working just fine for three months.) I checked the release notes for 102.8, and there was nothing about an update to Oauth2, so I assume the miracle was due to another unannounced changed by MS at the server level. I was not required to configure two factor auth.

Ah well. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the French say.

TTFN,

Loel

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