Email: Verizon/AOL Thunderbird problem
April 25, 2018 5:27 AM   Subscribe

Suddenly Thunderbird stopped downloading & sending emails from my Verizon/AOL accounts. Gmail still works fine.

Like I said, Thunderbird will no longer download emails from Verizon/AOL accounts. I've searched for answers but nothing works. I've reinstalled the accounts dozens of times and I get the same errors, something about the password (which I am positive is correct). I've reset my router. I've fooled around with different settings. I have no idea what to do next. Reading my mail on AOL's web page is a horrifying ordeal: No filters etc like in T'bird.

Have any of you had a similar experience? Any ideas what is going on? Any suggestions?

Thank you all.
posted by james33 to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)
 
Best answer: It sounds like maybe you need an app password for AOL to sign in, much like the GMail app passwords. Did you see this when looking for help from AOL?
posted by COD at 7:13 AM on April 25, 2018


Best answer: Do you have a really old version of Thunderbird? The security standards for email communication change and older obsolete methods (TLS 1.0, for example) become no longer supported due to security or maintenance issues. It's possible that Verizon/AOL decided not to support something that was normal in an older version of Thunderbird, so I would try upgrading and then reinstalling the account.

It's also possible that Verizon/AOL decided to stop supporting third party methods (IMAP/POP) of getting their email so no mail client will work, in which case you are forced to use their web client. This can be so they can display more ads or just to cut costs.
posted by meowzilla at 11:19 AM on April 25, 2018


Response by poster: Thanks for the replies.

Thunderbird is up to date and AOL swears it should work.

I think I'll try one more thing: uninstall TB and reinstall and then see if I can get it to work. If not I may just dump Verizon/AOL email. How that's done I'll ask in a new question.

Thanks every one.
posted by james33 at 4:04 AM on April 26, 2018


Response by poster: Just for the heck of it, I tried to get TB to work one last time a few seconds ago. I did exactly what I was doing yesterday. It worked. I have no idea why
posted by james33 at 4:30 AM on April 26, 2018


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