Setting up email on new phone ntlworld email

[alienor]

My husband is trying to set up his email on a new phone. He can log in using his password on webmail so we know that works. However after following the instructions for setting up, using imap and smpt with virginmedia server names, he is denied access - error message is ' Please check your email and password and try again'. What is going wrong? Hope someone can help.

[Graham_A]

VM have recently changed the log in requirements for accessing VM Mail via third party apps.

If you change the password for the account in My Virgin Media > Account settings > Account details you will not be able to use the new password to access the account via an email client. Email client access now requires an app specific password which can be generated in the MyVM > Account Settings > Account details > Mailbox App password management

This also applies when setting up the email on a new device.

[alienor]

Thank you. We had found that, however there is another issue relating to the generate app password instructions. It takes you to a screen asking you to change your email address. How can this be right. My husband does not want to change his email address. 

[Graham_A]

It isn't asking you to change the underlying email address it is asking for the sign in username to be changed to a third-party email address.

This is an additional security step so that a verification code to authorise password changes can be sent to the third party address.

Once changed the new username is used to sign into the My Virgin Media account for the VM email address concerned and for VM webmail.  The original email address is still used as the username for email clients together with the generated app password.

[alienor]

My husband spoke to VM customer services and they obviously had no clue about the app password change. They said they would send him an email with a link so he could change his password. The link does not work. During the conversation they asked if he could sign into my email on his phone - seriously. They also asked him for his email  password!!! For all this I pay £110 a month. Seriously thinking of ditching them now though it means losing both our emails. It is unbelievable how they get away with this.

[alienor]

This problem is ongoing. My husband signed in on his old phone using Outlook and his ntlworld email as sign in. The new instructions say: If you access your Virgin Media Mail inbox through a third-party email provider such as Microsoft Outlook or Gmail from Google, you’ll continue to access those with no change.

So why is he unable to sign in now using Outlook? He gets Please check your email and password and try again. Both are correct. Virgin Customer services do not understand the new instructions and are not helping.

Hoping someone here can enlighten us. Still worried he may lose the ntlworld email address. 

[alienor]

We have solved the problem by no longer using Outlook. What a mess.

[jpress]

Same problem setting mail app on wife's new phone to access Gmail and ntlworld mail from one place. Followed instructions and it changed her virgin address to her Gmail one keeping old password and gave me app password. Mail app won't allow use of 2 accounts with same name, and virgin media site won't let me change her email to ntlworld. So she now has to use a browser to access her ntl mail and an app for Gmail. She is not tech aware and this makes it very difficult for her to use. Utter disaster

[jpress]

Once changed the new username is used to sign into the My Virgin Media account for the VM email address concerned and for VM webmail.  The original email address is still used as the username for email clients together with the generated app password.

That failed for me entered wife's ntlworld username with the generated password and just got the same the username or password is invalid or the image settings are wrong.

[jpress]

What did you use instead of outlook? Had exact same problem trying to setup Samsung mail for the wife so she could use single app to access Gmail and ntlworld but now she's stuck with a browser for the latter.