SOLUTION found (probably)
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I apologize in advance for necroing this thread, but I found a solution to this issue (I think) and I wanted to share it here in case anyone else winds up searching for answers.
NOTICE 1: Since the changeover at AOL isn’t happening until June 1, 2021 (and I’m posting this on May 12th), I’m not 100% sure this solution will work once the changeover happens. It seems to be working for now, though, so hopefully that will last past the changeover date. No guarantees.
NOTICE 2: I strongly recommend making a backup of your profiles/files etc. (Mozbackup is your friend). Nothing in my solution below should endanger your data, but it’s always good to have a backup in case you goof up something (like I’ve done in the past) and you need to restore. Also, if you have the system set to auto-retrieve mail, you may want to turn that off before you try this so that you don’t get any new mail in the middle of this process.
Solution steps begin here:
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1) Enable cookies in Thunderbird (Click the menu icon, go to “Options/Preferences,” check the box next to “Accept cookies from sites”). This is VERY important. Do not skip this step. You should be able to turn cookies back off later (once all the cookies you need are in the system), but I’m not 100% sure.
2) Update outgoing authentication:
a) Click the menu icon, go to “Account settings.”
b) Click the mail account name in the left pane.
c) Click “Edit SMTP server” (it should be in the bottom right of the right-hand pane).
d) Change the “Server Name” from “smtp.verizon.net” to “smtp.aol.com” (This is an important step and is missing from the instructions AOL sent out to users).
e) Click “OK” to close the SMTP server box, but then click “Edit SMTP server” to open it up again. (This is another important step, as the option for OAuth2 won’t appear if you don’t do this).
f) Change “Authentication method” to “OAuth2” and then click “OK” again to close.
3) Update incoming authentication:
a) You should still be in the “Account Settings” tab. If not, open it back up.
b) In the left pane, under the mail account name, click “Server Settings.” If you don’t see this, click the little left pointing > next to the account name and it should show a list of options.
c) In the right-hand pane, change the “Server Name” from “pop.verizon.net” to “pop.aol.com” (Again, this is an important step and is missing from the instructions AOL sent out to users). If you have IMAP instead of POP, this should still work (with imap.aol.com), but I haven’t tested it.
d) Change “Authentication method” to “OAuth2” (and close the “account settings” and “options” tabs, if you don’t want them open).
4) Close Thunderbird. Wait a minute or more. Open Thunderbird.
5) When you next check for mail in the account you just edited (which probably happens at startup when you open Thunderbird), a small window should pop up with an AOL login screen.
a) IMPORTANT: Where it asks for your username, put your full e-mail address instead of just the username (this part tripped me up several times). So, for example, your new “username” might be:
username@verizon.net. You may wish to click the box next to “Stay signed in” but it probably doesn’t matter. Click “Next.”
b) Input your password. Click “Next.”
c) You’ll probably get a page (or possibly two) asking you to accept terms and conditions. Read them over and then click “Agree.” You may have to do a few more steps, such as agreeing to a privacy policy, depending on whether or not you’ve done so in the past. Keep going until the window closes or it says you’re done and tells you to close it.
6) Test things out by sending an e-mail to yourself. If you can both send and receive mail, you should be good (hopefully) when the changeover comes on the First of June.
Repeat steps 2 through 6 for any additional Verizon accounts you have.
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End of solution steps.
Side note: If you previously had the authentication set to “Normal password,” and you told Thunderbird to not save your password each time (so that you had to type in your password each time you opened Thunderbird), this will no longer happen with OAuth2. Essentially, the system will store a password for you (even if you don’t want it to) but it will be a long string of characters and not your login password. I’m annoyed by this, as I don’t want it to happen, but it looks like AOL isn’t giving me a choice if I want to keep using Thunderbird. You can still set a Master Password for logging in to Thunderbird, if you want.
I hope someone finds this helpful. Be careful to not skip any steps. It’s been a royal pain getting everything to work through research, trial, and error. Thanks to the people in this thread who helped me out.
