Re: [Fetchmail-users] fetchmail expunge error

[Alan D. S. <sal...@at...>]

Hi Leslie,

On 2021-04-25 12:24:06, Leslie Rhorer <les...@si...> spake thus:
[...]
>I called the ISP (AT&T) and
>they informed me users could no longer access mail from a client using
>their password. Instead, the user has to create a secure keyword.

For other AT&T/Yahoo customers, the specific terminology used by the company
for those new passwords (in case you need to google it) is "secure mail
keys". They seem to have been rolling them out for a while; I needed to make
the change (I think) in fall 2020, but the effort seems to have started at
least as far back as 2019:

   • "Use OAuth or secure mail key for email apps"
     https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1240462

   • "Create a secure mail key"
     https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1240308


>I was
>also informed the old server (inbound.att.net) is no longer active.

I think the person who provided that information was misinformed. The
'inbound.att.net' address is still active -- I am successfully using it with
POP3. Also, it is still listed in the AT&T online help articles. E.g.,

   • "Get AT&T email server settings"
     https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1010523

   • "Set Up or Update AT&T Email - Apple Mail (OS X)"
     https://www.att.com/support/article/email-support/KM1010489

There are relatively frequent availability issues with 'inbound.att.net', but
that is a long-standing problem unrelated to the password changes, AFAICT.


>Instead, users must download from imap.mail.att.net.  The tech claimed
>POP3 downloads would still work, but I was not able to get fetchmail to
>login to the server with the POP3 protocol.  I would be interested to
>know if anyone is still able to login to the new server using the POP3
>protocol.
[...]

Yes, the below fetchmail config line is what I use to pull mail from AT&T via
POP3, but I am doing it from 'inbound.att.net':

     poll inbound.att.net port 995 protocol pop3 timeout 120 uidl username "my-...@at..." ssl sslcertck password "MY-SECURE-MAIL-KEY-VALUE" expunge 10 fetchall

For other AT&T users that have (or had) a working POP3/inbound.att.net
configuration: Note that when switching from legacy passwords to "secure mail
keys", the only value that needed to change was the password. You have to use
their clunky webapp to create the "secure mail key", and then use that
generated value as the password in your fetchmail config.

HTH,
-Al

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