Outlook is being a booger

[The_Doc_Man]

Configuration: Two machines - 1 laptop, 1 desktop - both are Intel I5 CPU running Win 10/64 with Office 2010/32, patches up to date within a week or two.

Wife's Outlook won't let her log in to either of her accounts on either machine. It rejects both passwords.

We had a password problem and worked with AT&T to get the password reset about a month ago. It worked again for a while but somehow Outlook gets buggered. Neither her personal account nor her "organizations" account is working at the moment.

I have done some serious experiments and digging and web searching, but so far, no luck in anything I have found.

1. When I log in to the ATT.COM accounting site I can verify that the passwords ARE correct, so that's not it. And the accounts are not locked.

2. When I try to log in through the AT&T Webmail site, the passwords work, so that's not it. Again, not locked. The problem with the webmail site is that it is a bear to save mails and organize them.

3. I have used REGEDIT to find all 'bellsouth.net' entries to see if there was a corrupted entry or a remnant. Everything looks clean at this time. In the past, I actually HAVE found damaged registry entries - e.g. for Windows Messenger, which ties in to Outlook - and removed them to fix a problem. For this one? I can't find anything that makes sense as a cause for a bug.

4. I have deleted and recreated the accounts in the Outlook accounts list - with an exit from Outlook in between deletion and reentry. Still not working.

5. I have used the original installation disk to do a Repair of Office 2016, followed by a reboot. Still no happiness. (And when Momma's not happy, NOBODY's happy.)

6. I have checked. My anti-virus package is not complaining and reports no issues. It is not blocking the site.

My own Outlook account running from Office 2010/32 on a Win 7/64 is still working. It is not possible to back-step the Win 10 systems to Win 7 because they were bought as Win 10, not upgraded to it.

The only remaining difference between the one working and two failing systems makes me believe that a Win 10 patch has broken Outlook 2010.

I have no qualms about actually back-stepping a patch - but it would help very much if anyone has seen any info on WHICH patch is the culprit.

 

[Gasman]

Compare the updates of both machines?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Both have recently updated. Remember, with Win10, you don't get as many update choices as you do with previous versions. You in essence cannot tell it "NO" to an update past a certain point. It will do it anyway. (Unless that has been fixed lately.) But both of our Win 10 machines have the same issue and my Win 7 does not have it, with the same version of Office on all three systems.

 

[Minty]

Have you deleted the Outlook profiles?

I think even if you delete the account(s), the profile "stays" around caching things you don't want it to.

 

[theseus]

Start with Minty's suggestion of deleting the profiles. Are you keeping the mail in a pst or are you leaving it on the server and using imap?


If you are using imap, make sure you have the username and password for both the incoming server and outgoing server.

 

[Gasman]

I'd even try another email client, just to see if that works or not.?
Even the Win10 Mail client (not very good) as a test.?

Also try 'sfc /scannow' without the quotes in an Administrator command window.

 

[theseus]

Even the Win10 Mail client (not very good) as a test.?

Definitely try this.....



If it works, perhaps uninstall and reinstall outlook...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Getting to the point of trying the uninstall/reinstall.

Yes, using .PST files to hold mail.

I have deleted the accounts, exited from Outlook, and regenerated the accounts. No joy. I thought I knew Outlook pretty well, but where are the profiles?

Right now, Outlook is set for POP3/SMTP (both SSL secured so using alternate ports 995 and 465), not IMAP. When I tried to use IMAP, that option was not available from the ISP for the servers in question. Considering that these days I get tech support from people for whom I would be overjoyed to learn that English is at least a second language for them, as opposed to 3rd or lower, so asking them "why" isn't getting me anywhere.

 

[Gasman]

Certainly do a restart in between deletion/creation.
As a test I generally just create a new account quickly with same details bar account name.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Apparently after thinking about it for a while, Outlook decided it wanted to play again so this morning, after all of the REPAIR and other things I did, it is working. This is after letting it sit 24 hours. (But it wasn't the password unlocking after 24 hours because the password worked for the webmail site.)

The good news is that wifey is happy.

The bad news is that I do not know which action among the many that I took was the one that eventually caused it to settle down.

I hate Outllook.

 

[Gasman]

Check for another windows update.?

Pray it does not happen again.

 

[isladogs]

I hate Outlook

Me too but try Windows Mail and you'll hate that even more.

 

[NauticalGent]

Try it at the corporate level with a full-on exchange server where your local folders have to be synced.

Hatred to the highest level of hatrivity...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

NG - did that with NEDC NO. Full-on MULTIPLE Exchange servers plus a local .PST on the government-furnished laptop that had to be sync'ed on every connection. What REALLY got to me was when the account went west on me and I had to get the thing unlocked, but because of the multiplicity of Exchange servers, I sometimes had to wait for the Windows Domain Controllers to propagate the updates around the server farm. And the domain propagation delay was often in double-digit minutes, since that domain covered the ENTIRE NMCI Mail domain, to the point that it was the 2nd largest domain in the world, and I didn't want to contemplate the largest one. WAY more than 100K users, and the .PST files were in a huge network-attached storage array that measured space in units of multiple (2 digit number) Terabytes.

Remember, NG - before I retired, you and I worked for the same Navy.

 

[NauticalGent]

Remember, NG - before I retired, you and I worked for the same Navy.

Trying to block it out!

 

[AccessBlaster]

Our organization went from Outlook to Google and has never looked back.