username/password disappearing from keychain in Entourage

[elsa]

I've searched on this and another site, and have found some similar problems but nothing exactly like my current issue. I would put my technical level at "low/very low". I'll explain as clearly as I can what the problem is - and I very much appreciate any advice/help anyone can give me. I work for a small business - everyone else is on a pc. I have an iBook and installed Office on it. I've been using Entourage (version 11.2.1) seamlessly for months. we were having problems with the server at work (blackberries not synching properly with inboxes, etc.) our IT guy worked on the server for a while, then Thursday morning he found his solution. At the same time, I started getting an error message repeatedly telling me that i had an incorrect username and password or security setting so couldn't use my work email account. Every time I looked in the Account Settings for the work account the password had disappeared. I looked online and found a similar problem discussed on another forum - the user then got his answer from this forum and reset his keychain and that fixed it for him. I reset the keychain. I can access my gmail account and my other account that I have set up through Entourage, but not my work email account. I can access my work email account online through webmail, so it's not that my password was reset to something different or anything like that. I've reset the keychain a couple times and have restarted the computer and entourage many times. My IT guy says the problem is with my computer, that the PC's in the office are working fine and that it is because my Mac uses certificates to access my mail from my server and bring it down to Entourage and that there must be a patch for PCs that allows them to adapt to what he has done on the server but not one for the Mac. (I've of course searched for any updates but haven't found any). Anyone heard of anything like this/have any advice? thanks very much...

[sourcehound]

Originally Posted by elsa

I've searched on this and another site, and have found some similar problems but nothing exactly like my current issue. I would put my technical level at "low/very low". I'll explain as clearly as I can what the problem is - and I very much appreciate any advice/help anyone can give me. I work for a small business - everyone else is on a pc. I have an iBook and installed Office on it. I've been using Entourage (version 11.2.1) seamlessly for months. we were having problems with the server at work (blackberries not synching properly with inboxes, etc.) our IT guy worked on the server for a while, then Thursday morning he found his solution. At the same time, I started getting an error message repeatedly telling me that i had an incorrect username and password or security setting so couldn't use my work email account. Every time I looked in the Account Settings for the work account the password had disappeared. I looked online and found a similar problem discussed on another forum - the user then got his answer from this forum and reset his keychain and that fixed it for him. I reset the keychain. I can access my gmail account and my other account that I have set up through Entourage, but not my work email account. I can access my work email account online through webmail, so it's not that my password was reset to something different or anything like that. I've reset the keychain a couple times and have restarted the computer and entourage many times. My IT guy says the problem is with my computer, that the PC's in the office are working fine and that it is because my Mac uses certificates to access my mail from my server and bring it down to Entourage and that there must be a patch for PCs that allows them to adapt to what he has done on the server but not one for the Mac. (I've of course searched for any updates but haven't found any). Anyone heard of anything like this/have any advice? thanks very much...

You actually need to delete the Entourage entires from your keychain. I've seen this symptom when someone has tried to set up an Entourage account several times, with slightly different settings, and when it finally starts to sync with the server, it gets confused about which keychain entry is correct. Simply delete all references to Entourage from your keychain with the keychain access app, or trash your keychain file in your userhomedir/Library/Keychains. Then, the next time Entourage prompts you for a username/pass and you click the "remember username/password" box, it'll work just fine!