“I can’t send or receive any e-mail. Outlook keeps asking for my password. I think my computer may have a virus!” That was the phone message from a client last week. I called her as soon as I could and we tried to determine the problem over the phone. We checked the e-mail account settings and the stored user name and password. Everything seemed in order.
I had my client log in via webmail to see if the password really had been changed. No, she could access her e-mail using her usual address and password. Since we could not do much more via phone, we set a time for me to stop by later that day.
As I was driving to my client’s location, I was thinking about recent virus and malware attacks. I encounter such gremlins every week. But none in recent experience had interfered with e-mail accounts or Outlook. So, I really did not have a trouble-shooting plan when I arrived.
We started Outlook and, sure enough, it was demanding her password. We entered the same password that had worked with webmail and got the error message about the e-mail address or password being incorrect. I brought up the account settings and looked at the general information.
There it was! A rogue space character after the @ sign in her e-mail address. We deleted the errant space, saved the settings, and tried again. The e-mail flowed in normally and two messages in the Outbox moved to the Sent Items folder.
Sometimes, what seems complicated may, in fact, be quite simple. And when supplying information to a computer, every character counts.