HotmailFrom MozillaZine Knowledge Base
[edit] POP
[edit] SMTP
You can still use the webmail extension and its Hotmail add-on. However, the webmail extension is slower, harder to configure and may break (requiring you to get an updated add-on) whenever the web page changes. Normally you'd only use it if you're behind a firewall that prevents you from accessing the POP server or you need to download the contents of the Spam folder. You need to login periodically to keep Microsoft from disabling the account. You don't need to do this using a browser, Thunderbird will login to Hotmail whenever it checks for new mail. [edit] Errors[edit] Login errorHotmail has a design flaw where if you create a password longer than 16 characters it will work with webmail, but will fail when you use a email client. This problem effects other email clients such as Windows Live Mail, it is not Thunderbird specific. The problem is due to the Hotmail web page to set the password only saving 16 characters, regardless of how many you enter. If you login to webmail it automatically truncates what you entered to 16 characters, so that works. When you try to login using Thunderbird it passes the full password, which does not match what Hotmail expects, because Hotmail only stores up to 16 characters. The workaround is to login to Hotmail using a browser and change the password to one that isn't longer than 16 characters, delete the saved password using Tools -> Options -> Security -> Passwords -> Saved Passwords and then restart Thunderbird. When you are prompted for the password enter it and check the checkbox to save it. [1] [edit] SSL Security ErrorsSome people are reporting occasional SSL security errors with Hotmail. When that happens you want to verify that you're actually connecting to who you think you are, and if so let Thunderbird create a security exception so that it doesn't warn you every time. Some other companies (mainly ISPs) run a customized version of Hotmail using their domain on mail servers provided by Microsoft. Its been suggested that Microsoft is using a round robin DNS server that causes it to occasionally connect a email client to a third party Hotmail server instead of one from Microsoft. If that happened you would get a SSL security error due to the domain in the SSL certificate not being live.com. However, plenty of people using Hotmail never run into this problem. [edit] Exceeded the login limit for a 15 minute period errorsIf you login too often (due to checking for new mail) you may get a The STAT command did not succeed. Error getting message number and sizes. Mail server pop3.live.com responded: Exceeded the login limit for a 15 minute period. Reduce the frequency of requests to the POP3 server error message. The login limit is enforced by the server, and doesn't appear to be documented. This problem occurs with other email clients too, but doesn't occur with any Microsoft email clients. There isn't any known workaround. Reducing how often Thunderbird checks for new mail in Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Check for new mail every X minutes" helps. [2][3][4] [edit] New featuresHotmail is starting to roll out support for sending and receiving email from other email addresses, including Gmail and Yahoo. This is similar to what you can already do with Gmail and Gmx.com You need to register and validate the email address with a Windows Live ID. See this article for more information. If Hotmail detects that Thunderbird is configured not to "leave messages on server" after checking for new mail it will not delete the message on the mail server. Instead it will move it to a temporary webmail folder. You can disable this feature by logging into Hotmail webmail using a browser, selecting options, "POP and deleting downloaded messages", "Do what my other program says-if it says to delete messages, then delete them." and then press the Save button. [edit] See also
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