How do I begin to troubleshoot the Outlook "Enter Network Password" issue?

Posted by Daniel on June 13, 2010

If you use Outlook, you may encounter a pop-up window that asks you to enter your Network Username and Password to continue. Although this isn't necessarily related to your hosting account, here are some things to consider to begin troubleshooting:

• The Network Password box is for your email account. It's the username and password associated with it. If you have multiple email accounts, it may only be popping up because one of the email accounts is having an issue. Perhaps the account doesn't exist anymore and Outlook is trying to login to it.
• Have you ever sent and received email before? If you've never sent or received email, then the email account information is not properly setup in Outlook to send over your ISP. You may have to send over your ISP's SMTP server with a valid email account and password that the ISP you're using, although that's not always the case.
• If you have successfully sent or received email and you get the Network Password pop-up box, then it may be related to a temporary lost connection issue. It could be somewhere beyond your computer or ISP, and can also occur if you don't have Internet access. Also, if the mail server gets busy and doesn't respond in the time allotted by Outlook, it may generate the Network Password pop-up box.
• You can try rebooting your computer, connecting to the Internet, and trying again to access email through Outlook.
• The mail settings in Outlook can also become corrupted, so what you see being typed in is not necessarily what is actually being sent when trying to connect. You can try to delete the email account settings from Outlook and set them back up. CAUTION: Make sure you know what you're doing before deleting anything, especially the email account itself. If you have email saved on your computer, or on the server, it could be deleted for good. Also, be sure you have all of your email settings available before setting them back up, or write them down from the Email configuration screen if not.

Although this may not completely resolve your problem, it's a place to start. If this does not help, please contact Microsoft or your administrator.