Thunderbird cannot log into outlook.com with ExpressVPN

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VLMin
Posts: 67
Joined: April 14th, 2006, 7:15 pm

Thunderbird cannot log into outlook.com with ExpressVPN

Post by VLMin »

Greetings! We are stumped. WE have a brand new Win 10 machine with Thunderbird (current build) newly installed. We use a single IMAP account, which works fine on our older machine. It also works fine on the new machine whenever ExpressVPN is not connected. But whenever it is connected, Thunderbird cannot log in. As far as we know, all the servers, ports, etc. are correct (993 for IMAP, 587 for unencrypted SMTP). The tech folks at ExpressVPN seem out of ideas. (And to be honest, we don't have the impression that they tried very hard.)

What could be blocking Thunderbird in this way, while everything else seems to run perfectly with the VPN connected?

Thank you!
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tanstaafl
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Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird cannot log into outlook.com with ExpressVPN

Post by tanstaafl »

I used to use PureVPN with Thunderbird. Thunderbird had no problem connecting to any of the mail servers but both my Outlook and Gmail accounts generated security exceptions etc. because they detected that my IP address was in a different geographical location. That drove me to try to configure split tunneling so that all of my applications except Thunderbird used the vpn.

Did you browse https://www.expressvpn.com/support/trou ... l-problem/ ?

What VPN protocol are you using? If you're using "Lightway" try using "OpenVPN". https://www.expressvpn.com/what-is-vpn/protocols .

What is the full text of the error message you get when you try to login? If it mentions a email address replace the username portion with "username".

What version of Thunderbird are you using? "current" is ambiguous, I don't know if you mean 78.13.0 , 78.14.0 (just released), 91.1.0 (if you had downloaded 91.* from the web site and then updated) ....

I suggest you sign up for a free Gmail account and add a Gmail IMAP account (just for troubleshooting, not as a replacement). See if it has the same problem, so that you can tell if this is a account specific problem. It might also fail differently, giving you more information to help figure out whats wrong with your Outlook account.
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