SECONDARY email account locked out

[20432906801]

I have TWO email accounts as follows:

[MOD EDIT: Personal details] - Primary (and linked to "My Virgin Media" account) and

[MOD EDIT: Personal details]  - Secondary account

The SECONDARY account has been locked out for some weeks with the following message "The entered credential or authentication information does not work or are no longer accepted by provider. Please change them".

Please explain what I need to do in order to unlock the secondary account and get access to the historic emails as I need these in order to complete a Corporation Tax return by 31, July.

Many thanks

[coenoby]

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@20432906801 wrote:

Please explain what I need to do in order to unlock the secondary account and get access to the historic emails as I need these in order to complete a Corporation Tax return by 31, July.

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OK, that is a two/three step process:

1. Unlock the secondary email account by resetting its password
2. Generate a VM mail app password. That's a recent security requirement that VM have introduced to improve the security of their email accounts when you access them using a third party email app or client. The reason that affects you is because the error message you quote shows that you are using the Unified Mail feature of VM webmail to manage your Secondary email account from your Primary account's Webmail account. That means that in your case VM webmail is acting as an email app/client.
3. Update the settings in your Primary Webmail account to use the new Secondary account mail app password when it accesses your Secondary email account.

Here's how to do those

1) Reset the password

• sign in here https://mail2.virginmedia.com with the email address and existing password  of the problem account. That will take you to the “My Virgin Media Account” of the problem email account.
• Then go to Account details, scroll down to  Sign In details and you will see a place to edit(reset)  the password.
• If you cannot access the My Virgin Media Account for your secondary email account you can try the "Forgotten password route"  https://www.virginmedia.com/my-virgin-media/forgotten-details/password  If that does not work you will have to request VM to reset the password for you.

2) Generate a Mail App password (still in the same My Virgin Media Account)

• Then scroll down to Virgin Media Mail  and beside Mailbox App password management and click on Manage
• Scroll down to the bottom of that next page and click on Generate New App Password
• That will generate a new password be in the format:        video-post-mossy-sharp
• Make an exact note of that or use the copy function so that you can paste it in the next step.
• Sign out of the My Virgin Media account

Ideally, wait 20 - 30 minutes before moving to the next step to make sure the new passwords have propagated across the various VM email servers.

3) Update the Mail App password for the problem email account in your Primary webmail account

• Once you have done all that sign into your usual webmail account  as normal.
• Click on the  cog wheel icon top right of the screen
• Click on  Accounts in the menu that comes up on the left.
• Find the problem secondary account in the list and click on Edit beside it.
• Scroll down to Incoming server section and enter or paste the  App password (video-post-mossy-sharp in the example above – including the -) into the Password field.
• Scroll down further to Outgoing server (SMTP) and set Authentication to As incoming e-mail server
• Select Save

Post back how you get on with all that.

Coenoby

[kim1231]

I have exactly the same problem as the above. Thank you for posting some help, it's more than I've got from Virgin. I have tried all of your suggestions before and have contacted Virgin many times who said they couldn't reset my password and I would need the tech team to help. I haven't heard anything and keep getting told they're working hard to fix it!! I will try and work through your guide again, just in case it works this time.

[spikeq]

I am in exactly the same situation as Kim1231 and count myself lucky to have found this particular thread. I am not a computer savvy person and I have cOmplained to Virgin via nthe complaints route but have received no response whatsoever.  I am hopeful that I will have success with the advice from Coenoby above, even if not, my thanks are due for at least trying to answer the problem.  I suspect that there are many others in the same situation as Kim and I .

[Juliap1]

I am in the same boat too and locked out for 4 weeks now with no Virgin help despite complaints! I will try this advice too and fingers crossed.

[spikeq]

Many thanks for your info and advice, but unfortunately I was unable to get it to work - perhaps my ineptitude or lack of experise. Thanks for trying and I may try it all again tomorrow. In the meantime I have registered a formal complaint regarding this.

[Akua_A]

Hi @spikeq 

Welcome to our community forums and thank you for your first posts.

Sorry to hear you have been having ongoing issues with trying to access a secondary account. We can understand the inconvenience caused and we want to best help. I have sent you a private message regarding this. Please keep an eye out for an envelope at the top right corner of your Forum page. Let me know if you have any issues locating this.

Thanks,

[coenoby]

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@kim1231 wrote:

I have tried all of your suggestions before and have contacted Virgin many times who said they couldn't reset my password and I would need the tech team to help.

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My first thought would be to sign into the My Virgin Media Account for your Primary VM email account (were you go to view your VM bills) and go to the Account Details page and click on Manage other My Virgin Media accounts.

Check whether the affected email account is listed there. If it is not listed that means it is not linked to your current VM Broadband account. If that is the case it's not good news.

If the account is listed in your Primary My Virgin Media account it would be interesting to have a bit more information on exactly where things are failing:

• So are you getting same error message as @20432906801? "The entered credential or authentication information does not work or are no longer accepted by provider. Please change them".
• If so, can you access the My Virgin Media Account for the affected email address to change its password?
• Can you get to the page to change the password but it will not accept any new passwords you try to set?
• Can you change the password for the email account but cannot update the password in the webmail account?
• Can you  complete all the steps but you still get the same error message?

Depending on how far you get there are some further checks you can run to identify the underlying problem.

Coenoby

[kim1231]

Hi Coenoby, 

Thank you so much for all of your help. I will try this when I get time and fingers crossed it will work.

Kim

[kim1231]

Hello again Coenoby,

It is listed in my account.

The error message shows when I try to view the account through my main inbox, it shows as an additional mailbox but has the error triangle next to it. If I click on the triangle the message appears.

I can't find a way to log into it separately or change the password as if I log in it goes straight to my main account and if I change the password, it changes it on my main account. I only view my accounts through a browser and don't use the app. Is there a way to log in to this second account that you know of?

Thank you so much for your help. Kim

Should I delete it from my accounts and then try to re-add it? I didn't want to lose it altogether so haven't tried this.