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Cannot receive Thunderbird incoming email from AOL provider beginning Aug 27, 2022 - "The server does not support the selected authentication method"

  • 23 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 23 views
  • Last reply by vvchamb

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I use Thunderbird email on my Windows 11 computer. My ISP for this is AOL. As of yesterday, 27 Aug 2022, I can not receive email and get this error message "The server does not support the selected authentication method. Please change the "authentication method" in the "Account Settings/Server Settings". My server settings are set to the AOL requirement of OAuth2 and have been working fine until yesterday. My Thunderbird was upgraded to 102.2.0 about the time that I noticed the email problem. Only the incoming server is affected; I can still send outgoing mail. I have the same problem on a second computer that is running Windows 10. Thunderbird on that computer was also upgraded to 102.2.0. How can I fix this issue?

Update 29 Aug 2022 - The above quoted error message from the server goes away if I change the Authentication method for the incoming server to "Normal Password" instead of "OAuth2". When I provide my AOL password (which is valid because I am able to log directly into AOL email) I get this message "Sending of password for user vvchamb did not succeed. Mail server pop.aol.com responded: [SYS/TEMP] Server error - Please try again later." About a year ago AOL required me to change the authentication from Normal Password to OAuth2 and this has worked until the latest Thunderbird upgrade.

I use Thunderbird email on my Windows 11 computer. My ISP for this is AOL. As of yesterday, 27 Aug 2022, I can not receive email and get this error message "The server does not support the selected authentication method. Please change the "authentication method" in the "Account Settings/Server Settings". My server settings are set to the AOL requirement of OAuth2 and have been working fine until yesterday. My Thunderbird was upgraded to 102.2.0 about the time that I noticed the email problem. Only the incoming server is affected; I can still send outgoing mail. I have the same problem on a second computer that is running Windows 10. Thunderbird on that computer was also upgraded to 102.2.0. How can I fix this issue? Update 29 Aug 2022 - The above quoted error message from the server goes away if I change the Authentication method for the incoming server to "Normal Password" instead of "OAuth2". When I provide my AOL password (which is valid because I am able to log directly into AOL email) I get this message "Sending of password for user vvchamb did not succeed. Mail server pop.aol.com responded: [SYS/TEMP] Server error - Please try again later." About a year ago AOL required me to change the authentication from Normal Password to OAuth2 and this has worked until the latest Thunderbird upgrade.

Modified by Wayne Mery

Chosen solution

Sept 8 9:26AM - just installed 102.2.2 and immediately received all my AOL email from 5PM Aug 26 to today. Thunderbird seem to be working perfectly again. Thank you!

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Thanks. I knew from Wayne that the fix was coming in 102.2.2. I only tried the 102.1.2 version because Wayne suggested it and I assumed he was trying to see how far back the problem was. I will wait now for the update.

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102.2.2 is now available.

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Chosen Solution

Sept 8 9:26AM - just installed 102.2.2 and immediately received all my AOL email from 5PM Aug 26 to today. Thunderbird seem to be working perfectly again. Thank you!

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