Incorrect email or password message in email client

[Dirt65]

Hi,

I hope someone can help me with what appears to be a very long running problem with BT and its suscribers! I joined BT in September 2022 after years with Virgin (got too pricey) and set up my email accounts with no problems using Windows Live mail on a Windows 7 home pc and a Windows 10 laptop with both my BT email address and also a secondary BT address for my wife.  They both worked perfectly until 3 weeks ago when I could no longer access my emails on the home pc, and I was getting the message that my username or password was incorrect. Upon trying the laptop I got the same result and message although my wife's account is fine. After trawling the forums and getting nowhere I resorted to trying to change my password on the My BT site (where I CAN still access my emails), but when putting in my old password which worked for months and submitting a new password it says that the old password is incorrect. From all this, I know that there was nothing wrong with my computers' setup as my wife's emails work fine, and my email address is not compromised as I can access webmail. So from what has happened it all points to gremlins at BT's end corrupting my original email login password ( my BT ID login to manage my accounts was set up using a Gmail account and has a different password to my emails). Are there any tech savvy people on here who have a way to restore this? Please don't suggest making another email account as migrating fifty years worth of login subscriptions again is not an option!

Any help welcome, thanks.

[Carlusha]

---

@Dirt65wrote:

Please don't suggest making another email account as migrating fifty years worth of login subscriptions again is not an/ option!

---

You had a computer and password secured accounts in 1973? Wow, and there was I believing my 40 years plus with early IBM and Amstrad computers was quite an achievement!

I hope you find a solution to your problem.

[Dirt65]

Haha!

A wild figure of speech, but definitely around thirty years (and my old Virgin email was @ntlworld using a 64k(?) modem in the phone line! The worse bit about migrating everything over are the critical subscriptions like payroll for work, banking, pension accounts etc where it seems almost obligatory for some spotty urchin who learnt everything on a gaming pc to input a wrong digit and screw you over lol.

[Dirt65]

Just for info, I just tried setting up a new BT account on the laptop as an experiment to confirm what I have said and it works fine, but I still need a solution to the problem for the original account if anyone has come across this. Thanks.

[gg30340]

If you can still log onto your email account via webmail (on a browser) log onto the email account and then click on your username at the top right. Then click on "Account Info" then "Change my Password" and follow the prompts.

This should change only the email password where as using the method that you appear to have been using changes your MyBT password as well as the email account password because is often the "master BT email account account and password that BT recommend you use for your MyBT which if I have read your post is not the case for you.

In any event try that and see how you get on.

If that works then change your email client's password.

[Dirt65]

Clicking on acc info / change password takes me from my email to the BT ID login page (the one that I registered using Gmail to set up my emails) and does not accept my btinternet.com email and password.

[Dirt65]

It sounds like a parody, but I had to register on MY BT to create my BT email addresses so had no BT email previously. Are you suggesting that my BT ID username and password should match my primary email? If so, why did it work for so long previously, and what if I change the MY BT to match my email only to find neither work?

[licquorice]

How are you logging in to webmail, via MyBT or directly?

Login directly here  using the email address you wish to change the password for (not your BTID)

[gg30340]

---

@Dirt65 wrote:

Are you suggesting that my BT ID username and password should match my primary email? If so, why did it work for so long previously, and what if I change the MY BT to match my email only to find neither work?

---

No I am not suggesting that. 

BT however when they first started MyBT and BTID wanted users to have their BTID and MyBT to be the same with the same password  so that users could access their email account via their MyBT even although it goes against security advice of having different passwords.

If you have never had a BTID or MyBT and your email account is not apparently linked to your BT Broadband account it may be that your email account has been "downgraded" to a BTMail basic account which can only be accessed from webmail and not with an email client.

You could try adding the email account to your MyBT.

See links to see if either of these methods will work for you.

How do I add any email sub-accounts to my BT ID? | BT Help

Can I move my BT email address to another account? | BT Help

[Dirt65]

I'm logging in via MY BT, and clicking on that link is taking me directly to the same email page. I've tried the other method of navigating through account info to Manage Email addresses AND Change Password. In the manage email address next to the email account I clicked on info /change password, which ask me to log in to my bt, and what it has done is change my MY BT password!