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Allan A

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Outlook Displays "need password"

Hello Everyone,
We have Windows 10 and Office 365 in our organisation.
sometimes Outlook stops to receive emails and on the bottom right shows it need password. However, when you click on it nothing happens.
The workaround is:
 1- disconnect account from "Access work or school"
 2- Clear credential manager from Control panel

but the problem is it happens again after couple of days and it is very frustrating to go through above steps again.
Any help is much appreciated.
Avatar of Andrew Leniart
Andrew Leniart
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How many email accounts are configured in Outlook? Just one or a mixture? Checked event viewer for any related errors?
Avatar of Allan A
Allan A

ASKER

There is only one account set on each Outlook.
The only error i can find is Event 1000, Application error
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If it's Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, try the following:

  1. In Windows 10 Settings, click on 'Accounts' then on the Left select 'Access work or School'
  2. If it's empty, then try and add the Office 365 Account here and see if it helps make it more persistent.
Avatar of Allan A

ASKER

The issue is:
Client Outlook displays "Need Password" and when you click on it no page opens to insert the password.
The solution is:
Disconnect "Access work or school" account , log off and restart the Outlook

the problem is after fixing the issue, everything works fine for couple of days and then it happens again.
Hi
In order to fix such issue, you can follow below steps:

1. Close MS Outlook

2. Launch Outlook now.

3. Go to Settings and select Accounts.

4. Choose Access work or school

5. Disconnect the email account and Launch MS Outlook again.

6. Sign in


Hope it helps..!!

Let me know if you still need any further assistance.

Thanks
My apologies Allan, I misread.

Can you provide us with a bit more details, as this might help us all narrow down the issue.
  • Which version of Windows 10 are you using e.g 1709, 1803, 1809 etc?
  • Are all the PC's on the same version?
  • Which Office are you using, Office 2016, Office 365 ProPlus etc, plus version number?
  • Are all the PC's on the same Office version as well?
  • How long ago did this start happening?
  • Have you tried to create a New user profile and configured an email account to see if it does the same thing?

You said:
Outlook stops to receive emails and on the bottom right shows it need password. However, when you click on it nothing happens.
.
As an alternative and quicker work around for the time being until we can find you a proper solution, could you try the following:
  • Click on the 'Send and Receive' Tab in Outlook and force a 'Send and Receive All Folders' and this might bring the Password prompt box back so you can try and get it going again?
  • If this doesn't work, try clicking on 'Work Offline' from the same 'Send / Receive' Ribbon and then click it again to bring it back online and see if you're able to get it going then?
  • It also sometimes happens that it hides behind Outlook. Try minimize outlook to see if it is hiding behind it.
As Remote IT pointed out, very often that pesky password prompt hides as a background window, so minimize everything and then alt-tab through all your available windows and see if you can find it.  Are you checking off the option to remember the password?

Ok, now the more confusing problem is why things seem to be reset after a few days.  A little more information on your environment:  Are you just using Outlook or are you also using the full suite of Office apps?  Are you using OneDrive and have the client active and syncing in your environment?  Is that generating any password prompts or just Outlook?  Also, do you have 2FA enabled on this account and are thus using an app password for Outlook access?

Also, you mentioned that you 'clear the credential manager'.  What exactly do you mean by that?  Just web credentials or windows credentials also?  Only MicrosoftOffice16_Data credentials or ALL entries?

Lastly, is this all your systems or just one?

I know it's a lot of questions, but it's very odd that your systems are forgetting credentials and even stranger that if it's selective and only Outlook, so need to cover all the bases here in order to try helping.
Avatar of Allan A

ASKER

Hi Asif,
We are using the full suite of office apps including OneDrive.
MFA is not activated for the clients.
Only Outlook is asking for password, emails stop synchronising.
and lastly, i only clean MicrosoftOffice16_Data Credentials from the credential manager.
Are you running any add-ins that access your MS-account by chance, such as OneNote in Outlook?  Also, any recent Office updates?  One last question:  AFTER you delete the credentials, do you have to log in to the other office programs/OneDrive as well or just Outlook again?
Avatar of Allan A

ASKER

Hi Asif,
the only add-ins is OneNote.
We haven't pushed any update recently via SCCM and they are configured to not to check update automatically.
After deleting the credentials, there is no need to login to another applications such as OneDrive.
Thank you for your help
I've run into the situation before where it's actually the OneNote add-in that's causing this problem.  It causes Outlook to pop up a credential box that looks identical to the email credential dialog box, but it's actually asking for your Office credentials.  If you have different credentials, this is likely your problem.  If you have the same credentials, have you tried opening OneNote and seeing if it needs any credentials?  It could be that because you are deleting the Outlook credentials, the OneNote extension will NOT check the now older saved Office Application credentials.

Perhaps delete all the credentials (Outlook & Office) in one go and then log into both and see if it rectifies the problem?
Avatar of Allan A

ASKER

Hello Everyone,
Today none of the Outlooks was working. I opened a ticket with Microsoft and got the following reply (attached file)
meanwhile since the clients were killing me, i created the following registry key for the clients:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity]

"DisableADALatopWAMOverride"=dword:00000001

It seems to fix the issue, but Microsoft says it is not recommended to keep this settings.
Anyone knows what would be the risk of having this setting on machines?User generated image
That key reverts outlook to a legacy login system, so it's not recommended for long-term use... though I know some people have had to use it for the last 2 years!  It's not optimal, but not a disastrous thing if you need it to stop the prompts.  In my experience, however, fully removing ALL credentials from the system (Office, Outlook & 365 web passwords), rebooting, then logging back into Office & Outlook sometimes removes the need for that reg key.  In addition, disabling the OneNote plug-in temporarily to check if that's the issue has worked for me in the past.

2 other questions:

  1. Did this problem occur with older versions of Outlook/Office365? Older versions of Windows 10?
  2. Are you using a private domain or the onmicrosoft.com domain?  If it's a private domain (i.e. yourcompany.com) then have you verified your DNS entries for your domain, especially the SRV entries?  Some site hosts/DNS registrars add SRV records for their internal email that conflict with the entires required by Office365 and this can cause continuous password prompts as Outlook looks for the incorrect login servers.

Good luck with this issue, I know it's a REALLY annoying one.
Avatar of Allan A

ASKER

Thank you Asif, It is an annoying issue and it looks like only the registry key is solving it.
I keep the setting on for the time being until I find another solution.

Regarding your queries,
The issue occurs with Windows 10 1709 and 1803 / Office 2016 Pro Plus latest version
I checked the DNS entries and they are fine.
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Allan A

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If it wasn't happening with older versions of Office365 Pro Plus, then it could be something broken in the latest update... God knows that happens a LOT.  Also, I've heard that it's pretty much necessary with some updates to completely flush ALL credentials (online and local) for office after an update.

Yeah, lots of ppl I've heard have just been using that registry fix.  Heads up that you'll want to google the updated version of that reg key since it's rumoured not to work in some more recent updates.

Cheers.