Hi, I’m having some grave issue with Outlook 2016 that has been annoying me and some of my co-workers for months. and it has recently started to get on my nerves.
I have an XPS 15 9560 with Windows 10 Pro 1803. I use this machine maybe for 8 hours a day 5 days a wekk and I put it to sleep and wakes it up several times a day. My problem is with Outlook 2016. Everytime I wake my computer or start the application, it prompts me to log in. It looks like this https://i.stack.imgur.com/q6koY.png and it specifically asks for my pin code. The problem is, I don’t have any, I have never set one up. If I pick more choices I can log in using my password instead. It works but then it instantly prompts me again for my pin. If I press cancel, the prompt disappears and I can continue using outlook as usual. This proceedure then repeats evertime I wake it up. As I store my password in my pw manager, I have to log in there everytime first which is even more annoying. Eveytime I log in, a new entry is created in the credentials manager so it tends to become very big after a while. These are the things I have tried:
If I rightclick the icon in the taskbar and choose connection status, it looks like I have 3 identical email accounts, not sure what is up with that. When I log into Outlook, it looks like I have two email addresses, one with my company domain and one without. The one with the domain is the one I actually wanna use and it is the one which is prompted.
On a related note, I’m also having similar problems with Git and Bitbucket. everytime I push my commits, I’m prompted for my login info. However I can see that it is stored in the credentials manager so this is also very annoying. There are commands for the bash terminal to set them permanently, but this only works until I put the machine to sleep.
I’m beginning to think that reinstalling my machine is the only option but I simply don’t have time for this. Do anyone here have experience in this matter? How did you solve it? I have tried using the Outlook web version but it seems broken as well. Notifications only work on edge (which I don’t use) and the web service slows down the entire browser.
Maybe there are alternative email clients? Though I don’t think I’m allowed to use anything else than Outlook.
(Sorry for my bad english, its not my native tounge.)
I don’t know much about that, only that I and some other people have this problem. We are about 5 of 140 people with the same setup that has these issues.
Some of your troubleshooting indicates this, but I want to ask; Have you fully logged out/reboot the computer since this started happening?
When we’d reset passwords for users their Office applications would freak out until they actually logged out or reboot to fully apply the settings globally on their profile.
Also, if it’s Windows 10, try changing the Sign-in options:
This, or CTRL + ALT + DEL and change the password yourself there.
-also-
AFAIK Pins are only set when a microsoft account is added. Unless its changed (which it could have changed) you should really never need the microsoft account tied to the local account to use anything, even outlook. You didnt add a personal microsoft account to your work machine did you?
If this is through a work domain, get in touch with the sysadmin. You might have other issues. Its hard to make heads or tails of a problem when we dont know squat about how the domain is setup.
I’d try a couple of different things. First check for 2FA, that will always prompt for login credentials until you provide it the Outlook app code. Also using the Mail option in the Control Panel go ahead and create a new Outlook profile to see if something happened with your old one.
Ah yes, I have rebooted my machine many times. I went into the options as you describe and it actually looked like I had a pin setup. I pressed the “I forgor my password” option and got a sms with a code. I set a new pin and then restarted my machine. Outlook still prompts me about passwords and pin’s though, even though I give it my newly set pin.
If I pick change password, it says I am not allowed. Though I have to change it about every third month or so. I usually get an email with a special link were I can change it. No I haven’t used my personal account anywhere on this machine.
Just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I removed everything that I had in Credentials Manager, I uninstalled office, changed my pin and then rebooted twice. Then I saw that I now had access to Office 2019 so I downloaded it and installed it. Still the same problem.
I contacted my Admin but he could not help me, he had never seen this and there was nothing special about my account. However, I finally managed to fix it myself! I got the idea to simply just remove my pin. Unfortunatly, it hade gotten corrupt or something because I could not remove it. The remove button was missing and using the forget option always resulted it “Something went wrong” (Yeah, f u Microsoft!)
I am very surprised you were able to fix your problem yourself. Most company system admins have the computer they are responsible so lockdown (meaning users usually can’t run anything else but certain apps or programs) but when it comes to anything that else you usually have to contact IT. I guess this just proves how more secure Linux is than Windows. With a properly setup Linux desktop the fix Baxtex used wouldn’t work because he wouldn’t have the necessary permissions to carry it out.
You can say the same about a properly setup Windows desktop. He could be a local admin, his I.T. staff could be lazy/untrained, and millions of other things.
Managing your own account credentials is hardly something I’d label insecure.
I was just surprised Baxtex was able to fix his problem without help from IT, as I said above it my experience most companies have their computers so locked down you can’t really do anything with them. The way I read the original post it was doubtful but possible Baxtex was a local admin and I agree with you, I.T. staff could be lazy/untrained. As to the topic of security, It’s my own opinion, Windows and Linux have both advantages and disadvantages. I think you have to look at what you are trying to accomplish first before you can decide which operating system would be a better fit in your environment.
Yeah I was local Admin so I can do basically anything on the machine. Other than that, our passwords get changed regularly, we use 2FA, we have to encrypt our machines, use password manager and a few other things.
I like to suggest creating a new account if you have Outlook data in the PST file. By which you will able to recover data and account both without any hassle.
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