Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Authentication error message

Sep 18, 2010 11:28AM PDT

Having a couple problems with my Wind. 7. I am browser and email shopping and something is wrong. I downloaded the latest Opera, want to use that for my email and my browser. It was recommended that I uninstall Windows Live Mail. I get my email service through Windstream. I have a Dell Inspiron laptop. I keep getting this message: Authentication failed for my(my live user name)@live.com. The server responded: Authentication failed. I can't get this message to go away. It pops up every times I change screens, log on etc. I welcome any input as to first, make this authe. message go away and second, make opera my default browser/mail.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
That Authentication failed message
Sep 18, 2010 9:46PM PDT

That Authentication failed for my.... message usually means that your email username and/or password are incorrect.

When you changed from WLM TO Opera's email client, did you set up your email account in Opera correctly? It will need the same username and password that you used for the WLM account setup.

Mark

- Collapse -
Not sure
Sep 19, 2010 11:53AM PDT

Hi Mark, I will try my best to answer your question. To tell the truth, I have messed with this mail stuff that I'm not even sure what I have done. I'm not sure what your recommending. When I had WLM, my address was *****@live.com. When I signed up for Opera, I made my address ******@opera.com. Does that help you to help me any? As of today, I'm not getting mail anywhere. Not even my windstream account, which is my main acct. that I list when filling out forms etc.

Message was edited by: admin to remove email addresses to prevent spam harvesters from picking it up.

- Collapse -
Ahh.
Sep 19, 2010 8:37PM PDT

Hi myla.

First, it isn't a good idea to post email addresses in public forums like these. Spam robots trawl forums for email addresses for spamming. I will ask the Forum Admin to remove both those email addresses.

But I see the problem I think.

You can't change your email address just because you are using different email software. Email addresses are 'assigned' to you by whoever your email provider is. Examples below;

1] My ISP, (Internet Service Provider), is Virgin Media. I have an email account with them, and the name of the account is in the format, myname.xxx@virginmedia.net. I have changed my usual name to 'myname.xxx' because I don't want spammers to get it.

I can use any email software I want, but for each software I must use the same email address, eg myname.xxx@virginmedia.net, that Virgin media gave me, and I must also use the same password that Virgin Media gave me.

2] We can also use web-based email accounts, eg Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo Mail, etc. These are accounts setup over the internet and we access and manage these by using a web browser, not email software. However, some of these web-based email providers also allow us to transfer these accounts to email software, but we must use the same email address and the same password, that we use in the browsers.

3] Some, if not all, ISPs also allow us to access and manage our emails on the web through browsers. In those cases we have to visit the ISP web site, login with the email address and password they gave us, then gain access to our emails.

In your case. I don't recognise Opera.com as an email provider. Have you signed up with Opera for them to be your email provider, or are you still expecting to be able to use the email account you were using with Windows Live Mail?

If you have a 'new' email account with Opera, then they would have given you an email address and a password, and it is those that you must use to setup your email software account.

If you are expecting to continue to use your previous email provider, then you must setup your email software using the 'existing' email address and password.

Here is Opera's tutorial for setting up their email software;
http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/operaM2/setupEmailAccount.cwd

I hope that helps.

Mark