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Samsung Galaxy S5 - email stopped working

sudz28

Lurker
Sep 18, 2021
4
5
I have been using the email app on my Galaxy S5 for checking my Hotmail account for years. I noticed this morning that I was getting notifications that my authentication was failing for no apparent reason. I've tried to clear the Email cache, deleted the account entirely, made sure I could log in without any problems from other devices (PC, laptop, etc., no issues), but every time now I try to set my Hotmail account back up for my email it tells me "Unable to set up account - Authentication failed". I am absolutely using the correct authentication (username, password) so I assume it's something wonky within the app that's causing the issue.

This happened to me one other time a couple of years back but I don't remember what I did to fix it - GRRR!
 
Try downloading the Microsoft Authentication app. That may help. Outlook / Hotmail have been pressing for authentication updating on a lot of my devices lately.
Thanks, I'll give that a shot! And of course MS is also quick to try to get me to download their Outlook 'app', but I really don't want to do this especially when I should be able to simply set it as my default account for Email and have it just work.
 
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Usually, or especially if I sign in to a public pc, it will say verify on the Authenticator app Yes / No.
It will give other options I think, but if it won't accept your password it's worth a shot. Maybe they've been trying to get people off Hotmail for a while.
I tried it, it did not help. It seemed to install and setup just fine, but trying again to log in to my email on the phone I'm getting the same error. I have no issues logging in on any other device, and in fact on the phone itself I can bring up a web browser and log in to my Hotmail account without any problem. It seems to be something specific to the "Email" application on the phone itself.
 
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Sorry. So it's the Email app. I haven't used a Samsung for years. Someone that has will have better advice, but possibly that version is no longer updated on the S5, or Microsoft don't like older OS.

You know there are other independent email (client) apps in the Play Store. Members here can recommend. You can also add the account to the Gmail app, if you don't want to use Outlook.

For separate email addresses, I have an Outlook app, a Yahoo app, a GMX app, and Gmail I never look at.

Also try clearing app data, and safe mode in 4 and 5 here
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/troubleshooting/TSG01001296/
 
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I finally fixed it; I had to go into Settings -> Accounts -> selected "Email". Then, I used the "Manual" setup option to get it working. I used:
IMAP-MAIL Outlook.com
Security SSL
Port 993
For whatever reason, doing this manually made it work and I'm back in business. I have no idea why whatever the other process does didn't want to work.
 
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