Have you got anything clearing cookies or anything else just before this happens?

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 30-Apr-13 22:43:18)

eMail clients and POP3 don't rely on cookies.

I use outlook and it happens to me sometimes, normally I just try a bit later and its ok

Yes, that is all it is, not a plot by BT.

I know they don't but neither do they all automatically remember them.

Hence my edit when my mistake hit me, to add "or anything else". There are other ways of having passwords remembered.

But it almost certainly is a red herring . I haven't ever heard of an email client such as Outlook forgetting a password it has previously remembered though. Nor a mail server having temporary memory loss. So I was applying the Sherlock Holmes principle.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 30-Apr-13 23:57:45)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Nor a mail server having temporary memory loss.

Orange POP3 Server "forgets" user ID/pwd perhaps twice a year, so it can happen. Probably server partially down/up. Overcome by just waiting it out or switching POP3 server, of which they have several.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

but neither do they all automatically remember them.

True! TELNET 110 never remembers them. Nor does it hide them .

Edited by XRaySpeX (Wed 01-May-13 00:25:53)

Outlook has numerous bugs if running with two or more accounts that can cause password issues.

Live Mail not so sure, but most likely a timeout or handshake reporting as a failed username/password

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Live Mail not so sure, but most likely a timeout or handshake reporting as a failed username/password

Seems to be an inherent feature of BT Yahoo POP3 email to fail to connect, and the misleading Microsoft error message leads people to change passwords they can't remember and messing the whole thing up.

This is a constant issue to BT email users, especially those who receive large attachments.

I have seen the odd issue where an antivirus product scanning incoming email causes a problem, but I have set a couple of people up with Gmail accounts (that they aren't aware of) to collect their BT email then they POP3 it from Gmail as before but much more reliably.

What happens if they have a problem after you are hit by a bus?