dvrock's profile

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4 Messages

Monday, January 15th, 2024 9:41 PM

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apple mac outgoing email: Excessive failed authentication, ESMTP server temporarily not available

after being required to change my xfinity password when logging into xfinity mail, i failed to get new emails on my MacBook. i changed the password in the apple mail application, and was able to get incoming emails. however, outgoing emails would not go and the outgoing server shows as being "offline". i changed the outgoing email password to what i change my xfinity password was, and it still would not work.

the logs on my email application show the following errors:    Excessive failed authentication, ESMTP server temporarily not available

i am able to do a packet capture on my MacBook and i do see my laptop connecting to xfinity and exchanging information prior to the error log messages. it *seems* like the xfinity outbound server has my account locked out. i can't really tell what information is being exchanged because it is encrypted.

please let me know what else i can provide.

thank you in advance.

Accepted Solution

Visitor

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4 Messages

10 months ago

bruce & mike - thank you so much for the tips.

i did shutdown all of my apple "stuff" last night and just powered up my wife's iPad and tried to send an email. it worked great. it *seems* like her iPad was smart enough to change the outgoing smtp password when i changed the incoming password.

when i turned on my MacBook  (running ventura), it still had issues. it seems like i was never able to successfully change the outgoing smtp password on it while it was connected to the network. i am guessing every time i would try, it would try to connect to comcast, and the connection had already failed enough times that it would refuse the connection ("Excessive failed auth..."), and my mac would revert to the old password because it couldn't verify the new password.

to work around this, i shutdown my internet connection (disabled wifi) and deleted the smtp portion of my comcast configuration and added it back in with the new password. it allowed me to do that without trying to verify. i re-enabled wifi, and it connected as it should have.

just a couple of troubleshooting tips:  on a mac the "connection doctor" is very helpful in troubleshooting (it is off of the top mail  menu bar - "window").  the logs provide a lot of good information. i was getting:

CONNECTED Jan 14 16:38:29.703 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:smtp.coxxxxxx -- port:587 -- socket:0x6000001b7a80 -- thread:0x600003befe00

READ Jan 14 16:38:29.932 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:smtp.coxxxxxx-- port:587 -- socket:0x6000001b7a80 -- thread:0x600003befe00
421 resomta-c1p-023412.sys.coxxxxxx resomta-c1p-023412.sys.coxxxxxx Excessive failed authentication, ESMTP server temporarily not available

after fixing the config/settings:

INITIATING CONNECTION Jan 16 12:38:39.951 host:smtp.coxxxxxxx -- port:587 -- socket:0x0 -- thread:0x60000357e3c0

CONNECTED Jan 16 12:38:40.142 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:smtp.coxxxxxxx -- port:587 -- socket:0x600000b32d00 -- thread:0x60000357e3c0

READ Jan 16 12:38:40.959 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:smtp.coxxxxxx -- port:587 -- socket:0x600000b32d00 -- thread:0x60000357e3c0
220 resomta-h1p-027914.sys.coxxxxxx resomta-h1p-027914.sys.coxxxxxx ESMTP server ready

summary of my issue:

comcast/xfinity required me to change my password when i logged into their web version of email.  that ended up "breaking" the incoming email on my mac. i changed the incoming mail server  password (to what i'd used on their web email version) and started seeing incoming emails. i knew that the outgoing mail server   password was always different than the incoming one ever since i installed the comcast service many years back, so i did not try to change it initially.  however, i tried sending an email and was unable to send email to the comcast network.

comcast/xfinity must now require them to both be the same (maybe after you change your password on their web email version)?

i am guessing that if i would have changed both (incoming & outgoing mail server) passwords at the same time, i might have been okay.

thanks for the help bruce and mike.

i hope this helps someone else.

d.

Problem Solver

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595 Messages

10 months ago

That phrase usually means you have a program, app, or device that is periodically trying to sync email using an invalid UserID/password. If the number of login attempts exceeds the mail server's threshold it responds with that error message.

The fix is to locate the offending program, app, or device and update its settings. Good luck!

Visitor

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4 Messages

thank you for this information. 

i will shutdown all of my computers tonight and start them up one at a time tomorrow, and see if i am able to get one working.

having said that, i am wondering about exactly what happened?

i know this about my MacBook: 

   in the settings for the comcast account it has two sections:  

        incoming mail server section - with one password (example:   "PasswdABC")

and 

         outgoing mail server section - with one password (example:  "PasswdXYZ")

when i logged into comcast (xfinity) email, it required me to change my password (example: "Passwd123").

then i stopped receiving emails. so, i went into the incoming mail server settings and changed that password to "Passwd123" (the new password) and i started receiving emails.  however, i did *not* change the outgoing mail server section, and i was unable to send emails to the outgoing mail server? i did try to change the outgoing mail server password to the new one, but have had no success.

so, i guess i am confused as to whether comcast/xfinity is *NOW* expecting the incoming and outgoing passwords to be the same? 

i haven't found anything on comcast/xfinity websites to indicate this.

sorry if this is too much information.

thanks again.

  - 

Gold Problem Solver

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26K Messages

10 months ago

... incoming and outgoing passwords ...

I can't find the answer in a Support article, but yes, these should be the same: the password you would use to sign in with for the UserID you're using to fetch or send mail. Some programs/apps have an option like "use same password for sending and receiving".

Please be aware that there are 2 kinds of responses in this Forum: Replies and Comments. When you Comment on a post by scrolling down to "Comment on this post here...", I am notified of your response. But if you select Reply, I am NOT notified and may not be aware of your response.

Visitor

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4 Messages

10 months ago

thank you for your efforts.

i will shut down my computers and iPads for the night, and re-enable each one in the a.m.   hopefully, that will give the outgoing server enough time to allow me to connect again.

i will post results in the a.m.

d.

New Poster

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2 Messages

9 months ago

Hi, I had the same problem.  I found this tip on another thread, and it seems to have fixed the problem, at least for now.

"when i turned on my MacBook  (running ventura), it still had issues. it seems like i was never able to successfully change the outgoing smtp password on it while it was connected to the network. i am guessing every time i would try, it would try to connect to comcast, and the connection had already failed enough times that it would refuse the connection ("Excessive failed auth..."), and my mac would revert to the old password because it couldn't verify the new password.

to work around this, i shutdown my internet connection (disabled wifi) and deleted the smtp portion of my comcast configuration and added it back in with the new password. it allowed me to do that without trying to verify. i re-enabled wifi, and it connected as it should have."

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