Why does Thunderbird's connection to yahoo imap server fail?
When Thunderbird tried to connect to Yahoo Mail today I got this error message: "Server imap.mail.yahoo.com has disconnected the server may have gone down or there may be a server problem."
This happened a few years again when Yahoo added the option, "Allow apps that use less secure sign in" and set the default to disabled. Enabling it solved the problem and Thunderbird has been able to connect to the Yahoo IMAP server ever since. But checking that option again, I see it hasn't changed. It's still enabled in my Yahoo Mail settings.
I had a similar problem in the past when Yahoo switched the IMAP server from imap.mail.yahoo.com to imap.mail.att.net. A google search today came up with a discussion on this problem at a Blackberry related forum. Someone there solved the problem by setting new server addresses:
IMAP SERVER ADDRESS:- rim.imap.mail.yahoo.com PORT :- 993 SMTP SERVER ADDRESS :- rim.smtp.mail.yahoo.com PORT :- 465
However that must have been Blackberyy specific as it didn't work for me.
Is anyone else experiencing this? Or has anyone found a solution for the problem yet? Thanks.
All Replies (6)
Because we are dealing with an organization that have unsurpassed skills disable IPV6 in Thunderbird to bypass the configuration SNAFU yahoo have made of their IPV6 implementation.
use the config editor to change
network.dns.disableIPv6 to false
(Double click the entry)
Matt said
Because we are dealing with an organization that have unsurpassed skills disable IPV6 in Thunderbird to bypass the configuration SNAFU yahoo have made of their IPV6 implementation. use the config editor to change network.dns.disableIPv6 to false (Double click the entry)
Thanks for the suggestion Matt. But I see that option is already set to false in my Thunderbird settings.
My error... set it to true.
Well for whatever reason, T-Bird is connecting with the yahoo server again now with that option still set to false. Earlier I had tested disabling and then re-enabling the "Allow apps that use less secure sign in" option. But it didn't make any difference at that point. I'm guessing this may only be a temporary glitch somewhere between here and there. Hopefully.
I am not privy to the DNS setup Yahoo have. But I suspect that at some point in the cluster definition that the routing is just garbage. So it works until a certain load point is achieved in their data centre and then you are routed out the door by a bad config somewhere in their IP V6. Disabling forces a fall back to IPV4 which does not have the error so works like clockwork.
Okay Matt. I went ahead and changed that option to 'true' and made a entry about the change in my notes. Again, hopefully this was just a temporary glitch. Thanks for your feedback.