I have recently experienced a re-occurrence of the "Enter Network Password" problem when Microsoft Outlook 2003 automatically checks for new mail. This occurrence seems to have coincided with a recent attempt to uninstall my anti-virus software, AVG 2012 FREE. (I can not say for sure that this was the cause of the problem but it does seem like a remarkable coincidence).
There appear to be a number of people who have been affected by this problem and a number of potential solutions have been suggested.
Of all the theories about the cause of the problem, the most impressive one is from David Penn, and I reproduce that here:-
Like a couple of other posters here I have found that none of the published answers solves the problem. However, I think the Microsoft link above that Paul provided above may finally help (reproduced here).The article highlights a potential problem if you use more than one email account, but I now suspect that in certain circumstances, it can also affect even a single email account.Here's the point:When Outlook 2002 (or later) attaches to the email servers, it both sends and receives at the same time (this was a new feature in 2002). To do this, it connects concurrently to both the outgoing (SMTP) and incoming (POP3) mail account.(Note: Both these connections are always made even if there is nothing to send or receive).This is not normally a problem and should lead to mail being up and downloaded at the same time, which is very efficient.However, if your email provider uses the same address for both incoming and outgoing mail AND if it also locks the account when being accessed, then it would return an error when send and receive are attempted concurrently because only one operationat a time would be allowed. Then, as the Microsoft article states, a 'lock error' of this type is treated by Outlook as a password failure and generates the hated 'Enter Network Password' box.This also explains the variability of the frequency of the appearance of this box; it is probably just a matter of timing. Although the send/receive steps are attempted concurrently, one will always be started before the other. If the first process manages to complete before the second, you won't get a message. It all depends on the speed of your PC, your internet connection and how busy the internet is.Further evidence that this may be the cause is that the two responders above who cannot get rid of the problem, David and Robert, share the same email provider as me - btinternet. The SMTP and POP3 settings for btinternet are both mail@btinternet.com.I have communicated with David and he confirms that he has a different email account that never generates the error. He is also chasing the provider to see if they can confirm how they handle concurrent account access.What would be useful is if anyone else out there can confirm that they fall into this category.Ok, this might be progress but, if this is the problem, what's the solution?Unfortunately, I can only see two. Either the email provider has to be persuaded to allow concurrent access to the send/receive process, or Microsoft would need to add an option to allow users to disable the concurrent email handler. If this is the case then a solution may be out of our hands. But maybe someone else out there knows another way? If so, help please!
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