Suddenly can't access email via pop3

[aaronsloman]

On my linux PC running Fedora 33 fetching email using POP3 has suddenly stopped working, both when I run fetchmail to get mail and pine (alpine) to read mail, and also if I use thunderbird to fetch mail. I now get this error message when using fetchmail:

"Fetchmail could not get mail from it@mail-virginmedia-com.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net"

Thunderbird simply states: "Sending of password for user recent:xxx.yyy@blueyonder.co.uk did not succeed." Mail server pop3.blueyonder.co.uk responded: Authentication failed.

Fetching mail using the thunderbird mail interface has also stopped working, but the error message is "Sending of password for user [MOD EDIT :REMOVED] @blueyonder.co.uk did not succeed. Mail server pop3.blueyonder.co.uk responded: Authentication failed."

The strange thing is that my wife can use thunderbird on her PC running windows 10 to fetch mail without a problem. We both have blueyonder email addresses. I wonder how something could have changed at the VM end that affects linux pop3 access but not windows pop3 access?

I can still read mail by accessing it in firefox on the virginmedia mail website, but for most of my mail the plain text fetchmail plus pine interface suits me much better.

 [MOD EDIT: Personal and private information has been removed from this post. Please do not post personal or private information in your public posts. Please review the Forum Guidelines]

[aaronsloman]

Apologies for duplication. I wrote the message half asleep close to 3am.

[Graham_A · Accepted solution]

One immediate observation is that you should not be using the 'recent:' prefix in front of the email address.  This function was dropped around 2016, but until last year was ignored by the VM servers.  However, a change to the servers means that if the prefix is used then the email address will not be recognised and an error produced.  So the first thing to do us to update your email client settings to remove the prefix.

Pop3-Authentication-Errors 

[aaronsloman]

Thanks for the tip about removing "recent:" from the email address. That wasn't enough to fix all the problems.

However, after going through a collection of changes to the contents of my .fetchmailrc file, using various tips found in various places I managed to get a version of the file that worked, and now email is coming in again when fetchmail is used, though I still have to work out how to get the required changes into thunderbird, which I mostly use as a calendar program but is sometimes also used for fetching or sending email.

Thanks for the tip about removing "recent:" from the email address. That wasn't sufficient, however.

After going through a collection of changes to the contents of my .fetchmailrc file, using tips found in various places, I managed to get a version of the file that worked, and now email is coming in again when fetchmail is used, though I still have to work out how to get the required changes into thunderbird, which I mostly use as a calendar program but is sometimes also used for fetching or sending email.

Below is an anonymised version of my ~/.fetchmailrc  file, now working on a Linux PC (running Fedora 33), running every 300 seconds:

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# Updated 12 Feb 2022

## the use of a logfile is optional, but it can grow huge
set logfile "/user-logindirectory/.fetchmail-log"
set postmaster "<user-login-name>"
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set softbounce
set properties ""
set daemon 300

poll pop3.blueyonder.co.uk port 995 with protocol POP3 user 'XXX.YYY@blueyonder.co.uk' there with password 'XYXYXYXY' is 'user-name' here options sslcertck ssl mimedecode

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[[I am not sure whether mimedecode is doing anything for me.]]

[aaronsloman]

Afterthought

I have been using fetchmail successfully for many years. It suddenly stopped working very recently because Virginmedia changed something without bothering to inform or warn users. This is APPALLINGLY UNPROFESSIONAL behaviour.

It caused me to waste many hours trying to find out what might have changed in my system (e.g. I had recently run a linux update, which turned out to be unconnected with the problem: after I had wasted a lot of time trying to fix the problem by undoing the update).

It should be possible to detect which uses are using Pop3 and port 995 and send them IN ADVANCE a warning message that a change is going to be made which will require changes to the user's email fetching configuration, with a link to a web page explaining in more detail what sorts of changes may be required with a mechanism to allow users to suggest additions/modifications to the page based on their experience of what did and did not work.

This comment should be forwarded to a senior manager/director at Virgin media. If there's no evidence of that happening I'll try to find a way to give VM appropriate bad publicity for incompetence.

[aaronsloman]

Many thanks for anonymising my message. I did that in one place (using xxx.yyy) and stupidly forgot to make the change in the second place after copying and pasting an error message, half asleep close to 3am....