I have the same occasional problem with Outlook prompting to 'Enter Network Password' and causing operations to come to a hault until I click OK. Has there been a resolution to this issue?
I also use Thunderbird and that application is able to survive service interruptions and continue checking email without any human intervention and my mobile phone is able to check my email accounts and survive service interruptions and continue checking email without any human intervention. Is it not possible to achieve the same level of performance from Outlook?
Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
Re: I'm floored
07-Nov-08
Make sure you submit your extensive resume to Microsoft
-
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]
Previous Posts In This Thread:
Intermittent "Enter Network Password" Dialog Stops Further Send/Rc
I have Outlook 2003 on Vista x64 Ultimate set up to access several different
Internet (POP/SMTP) accounts. All account information and password
information is stored properly, and Outlook often goes for days happily
receiving incoming messages and transmitting those I send
However, very occasionally Outlook will pop up an "Enter Network Password"
prompt, and all further Send/Receive activity will cease while that prompt
remains on the screen. I assume the occasional prompt is due to an
intermittent network error, POP server glitch, or whatever
This is a minor inconvenience when I'm here in front of the screen, but a
major headache when I'm away. I have rules defined to automatically respond
to certain messages, and Outlook needs to be continuing its automatic
Send/Receive activity 24/7, even (especially) when I'm not here
Is there any way to configure Outlook to retry some number of times before
emitting this message and blocking all further Send/Receive activity
-Noel
Re: Intermittent "Enter Network Password" Dialog Stops Further Send/Rc
Not that I am aware. When Outlook tries to authenticate and fails, it need
a human to solve the problem for it
-
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]
I'm floored
It seems unbelievable to me that a product as mature as Outlook would not
have even a basic strategy for dealing with an occasional communications
problem!
I can't begin to imagine the number of people whose lives would benefit from
some simple retry logic (e.g., try at least several times before giving up
and prompting the user). Or maybe just keep trying regardless of whether the
prompt is displayed and take the prompt back down if there's a subsequent
success. Of course, that would require a modeless dialog - something
altogether too difficult for the Microsoft programmers to implement
As I have not seen anyone say any newer version of Outlook is any better at
this issue, I must assume that even today's current version doesn't handle
this situation any better
Do Microsoft Outlook programmers think networks never fail to deliver data
Sigh, I have increased my mail-check interval from 2 minutes to 10 minutes
in the hopes that this will reduce the number of occurrences of this problem
over time by a factor of 5
-Noel
Re: I'm floored
That is done by the ISP/Mail Server
fro
th
a
data
problem
Re: I'm floored
If it were Outlook's responsibility to maintain the connection I might agre
with you. However, it is Windows Networking's repsonsibility
-
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]
Re: I'm floored
Your send/receive interval should never be less than about ten minutes
-
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]
Re: I'm floored
Retrying WHAT?
What is done by the ISP/Mail Server? Retries?
What is done by the ISP/Mail Server? Retries? Please understand that I'm
NOT talking about the process of routing eMail from the server to other
servers.
The key issue here is there is a temporary communications fault between my
computer and the ISP. This is normal and happens to everyone.
Communications errors are expected in any system.
When this occurs, Outlook drops out of its normal Send/Receive cycle and
prompts me with "Enter Network Password". When this happens, Outlook stops
sending and receiving from then on until I click a button on the dialog to
dismiss it.
Apparently it only takes one failure to log into one of the accounts in
Outlook's list for this to happen.
Thus Outlook cannot be trusted to "mind the store" for any length of time
and reply to people (by rules or out of office assistant or whatever) when I
am not in front of the computer. It will inevitably stall.
-Noel
So you're saying that, knowing Windows Networking returns a failure to login
So you're saying that, knowing Windows Networking returns a failure to login
to Outlook, that the Outlook application programmers can't implement retries
of the login process to overcome this shortcoming.
That's utterly ridiculous! This is 32 years of software engineering
experience talking.
Here, I'll even design it for you:
1. If there's a login failure, put up a modeless dialog stating "Enter
Network Password" unless that dialog is already displayed for this account.
2. Continue trying Send and Receive operations while the dialog is
displayed.
3. If the user enters new information and presses [OK], enter the new login
info into the database of account information.
4. If the user has not dismissed the dialog and a subsequent Send and
Receive operation to the account succeeds, auto-dismiss the dialog.
Note at no point in the above logic does scheduled Send and Receive stop
running.
-Noel
The login to the eMail server.-Noel
The login to the eMail server.
-Noel
Re: That is done by the ISP/Mail Server
You changed the @!#$% subject again, did not you!?
STOP DOING THAT YOU MORON.
Thanks for your educated input on this subject
Gosh, thanks for taking the time to respond so lucidly.
Hm, maybe you could consider learning to use the tools to group your
messages instead.
-Noel
Re: Thanks for your educated input on this subject
But you STILL shouldn't change the subject line. if a newsreader user has
marked all read, then it looks like a NEW post, not a reply to an existing
thread. And if you want to view all messages in THIS group then you are
welcome. There are THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS......
Re: Thanks for your educated input on this subject
You really REALLY are a moron, are not you?
Re: I'm floored
Make sure you submit your extensive resume to Microsoft.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]
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