Outlook 2016 prompts for password

[Tinribs]

Hi All,

One user is having this issue.

We use Office 2016 and O365 (via RM Unify)

Every morning he cannot logon to Outlook unless I reset his AD password - weird thing is I reset it to the same password it was before.

If I just reset his Unify password it doesn't work. If I don't reset either password then he is able to access OWA via unify but no other way.

Our AD passwords synch up to Unify at least every 15 minutes (I think) so I don't understand the need to reset the AD password to get the O365 password working when they haven't actually changed in the first place.

I've enforced a logout of all sessions from O365 - made no difference.

I've done a net use /domain which confirms that the only time the password has been changed is when I changed it.

It's not a credentials manager thing as it happens even if I log on as him to a computer that doesn't have his profile installed.

If I check his Azure Ad logon report I can see one odd logon at a funny time in the morning but it doesn't fail and the password is not being changed.

At no time does he have a problem logging on to AD so the AD password is not changing/being changed until I change it.

If there was a way to setup a job to automatically reset his password to what it should be every day that would at least stop him from having to raise a ticket every day but I realise that this is not the most secure way to do things.

For some reason the setup here is that the Outlook icon doesn't display for standard users (the icon in the system tray) so I can't even do a ctrl-click and see where the connection is failing...

Any help gratefully received.

TIA

[Danp]

What does audit log in Unify say? Has he got another device with his email setup on that is still using an old password then locking himself out?

[Tinribs]

Thanks for this Danp - I've never checked the Unify audit log; how do I do that? Sounds useful.

[Danp]

Thanks for this Danp - I've never checked the Unify audit log; how do I do that? Sounds useful.

 

I don't use it anymore, but I'm sure in the management console there's an option on the left saying audit. You can then pick date range and or username. It doesn't have a huge amount of info but might have something.

[Tinribs]

Thanks - nope not very helpful unfortunately. There are loads of options that ​could​ be useful but none are being logged. The only information I get from the log is when the password was changed. Which agrees with when I know it was changed. Can't think of a reason why changing the AD password to match what I know is already both the AD AND O365/Unify passwords fixes the issue. I have done a global sign out for O365 so he should have nothing else logged in and I've asked him to remove emails from any mobile or external devices to see if that helps....

[Danp]

No idea then. Still got a support contract with RM? If so, get them on it

[AliG]

I sometimes have success by deleting the outlook credentials from the credential manager app in the control panel

[Tinribs]

Update for this. The problem continues. Every day, once per day, I have to reset his AD and RM Unify passwords to allow him to access Outlook. If I don't update the passwords he can still access O365 but not Outlook.

It's not a credential manager issue as I've given him a clean profile and also got him to use a completely new build computer.

It's as if someone/something is resetting his AD password but the only person I can see doing that going by net user /domain is me.

He has no external devices (mobiles, tablets) etc connected to Outlook and he is logging out of each computer he uses before logging on to the next one in a different classroom. Today it was working fine until 11:50 am when it suddenly stopped again. As soon as I reset the password it started working again.

Totally confused and no idea where to look....

Ideas??

[Mako]

Stab in the dark... does his account have something weird like the password expires every 24 hours? If you've eliminated profile issues and hardware issues, then something is either changing his password or locking him out.

 

When it prompts for a password have you checked to see if the account is locked out? If you have O365 sync'd to on-premises, multiple attempts to login online can cause a lockout on-site. If his account has been compromised, something could be repeatedly trying to gain access. This should be checkable in O365 to find failed login attempts.

[Tinribs]

Thanks Mako,

Nothing unusual that I can see about his AD account:

 

 

 

His Azure AD logon report shows this:

 

 

 

The "interrupted" entry has these details:

 

 

According to MS that error is generated when you ignore the "Keep me signed in" request on logging into OWA so I don't think that is related as we know he can sign in to OWA even if his Outlook doesn't let him... I can't think of any other logs to look for

[Mako]

If you fire up Outlook 2016, File > Account Settings > Data Files tab> Choose his data file > Settings > Security tab

 

Is there a check in the "user identification" setting on his account?

[Tinribs]

Nope - that's all set by policy but I checked just in case

[Mako]

You mentioned in the OP about an odd login at an odd time of day. Every time you reset the password - are you putting the same thing in? Have you tried changing it to something else?

 

Other than trawling Google for "Outlook 2016 prompts for password Office 365", which brings up all kinds of potential solutions, the only other thing I'd check is - when he gets the authentication pop-up, is his account locked out at that specific time?

 

The only time I've experienced anything similar to this was when a member of staff had their e-mails on their phone, had changed their AD password but didn't change the IMAP settings and it kept locking them out due to too many login attempts, causing auth popups and other such issues. Took me a while to figure it out, but you'd see evidence of failed logins which isn't the case here.

[Tinribs]

There was one time when I saw a logon attempt at an odd time in the morning. I asked the user and he told me it wasn't him. That has not happened again since though. I was initially resetting the password to the same thing but on Friday I reset it to a new password. This seemed to work as he had no issues yesterday and was fine this morning until 11:50.

His account has never been locked when the problem has been reported (AD, OWA or Unify) and I have never manually unlocked it although I know that changing the Unify password automatically unlocks the account.

I've asked him several times about mobile devices and he is insistent that he does not use anything for emails. I would agree that this is normally the cause and in the past getting the user to remove and reconfigure the email client on the device resolves the issue.

Of the solutions available online none really apply to this issue. I am thinking of going to MS but I've had such a bad experience of their helpdesk that I am reluctant to do so. They contact me at all hours day or night regardless of the time difference and insist on things being done immediately that would normally take time to resolve.

Genuinely stuck here, even my third line people are avoiding the issue!!

[Mako]

Stumped, sorry. As I'm not an RM user, I can't relate to anything that would be different.