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ray2047
join:2009-06-21
Houston, TX

ray2047

Member

Does AT&T Cancel Email For Non Use

Several months ago I started getting a message from Gmail they could no longer retrieve mail from my Gmail account. Spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get it to work and gave up since I hadn't really used the account in a long time. Also tried accessing by setting up an email client but no luck.

Tried again tonight trying to access through my online account for my DSL. Got a message the Email address was not valid. Tried both SBCGlobal and Att. I was wondering if the email address gets deleted for non use after awhile.

They do manage to send my bills to my Gmail account but I don't seem to get notices like rate increases.

I have Dry loop service. Originally it was through the SBC-Yahoo service back in 2005.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
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Netgear FR114P

1 edit

NormanS

MVM

Oops! Should have read for comprehension. I do not believe that they cancel inactive accounts. However, a vulnerability in Yahoo! Mail security resulted in a number of accounts being hijacked. If logging in to »mail.yahoo.com with your current, 'Username@sbcglobal.net' fails, try using the password reset option.

NetFixer
From My Cold Dead Hands
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The Boro
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1 edit

NetFixer to ray2047

Premium Member

to ray2047
said by ray2047:

Several months ago I started getting a message from Gmail they could no longer retrieve mail from my Gmail account. Spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get it to work and gave up since I hadn't really used the account in a long time. Also tried accessing by setting up an email client but no luck.

Tried again tonight trying to access through my online account for my DSL. Got a message the Email address was not valid. Tried both SBCGlobal and Att. I was wondering if the email address gets deleted for non use after awhile.

They do manage to send my bills to my Gmail account but I don't seem to get notices like rate increases.

I have Dry loop service. Originally it was through the SBC-Yahoo service back in 2005.

I must not be seeing something in your post. What does AT&T have to do with your Gmail account? AT&T does have a relationship with Yahoo! for managing their customer email accounts, but to my knowledge, AT&T has never used Gmail for their email service. And I don't know of anything that Google and Yahoo! have nothing in common.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA

NormanS

MVM

I just assumed he set a Gmail account to "POP" his AT&T Yahoo! account.

NetFixer
From My Cold Dead Hands
Premium Member
join:2004-06-24
The Boro
Netgear CM500
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NetFixer

Premium Member

said by NormanS:

I just assumed he set a Gmail account to "POP" his AT&T Yahoo! account.

That was too great a leap for me to take based on the original statement "Several months ago I started getting a message from Gmail they could no longer retrieve mail from my Gmail account".

Also, the AT&T Yahoo! account would actually be in use if that were the case, so even if Yahoo! had recently started to implement an inactivity timeout for AT&T accounts, that counter should not have started. I have several AT&T Yahoo! email accounts that I have not actively used for years, but since my email client still polls them they are not really inactive accounts. If Gmail were polling the OP's AT&T Yahoo! account(s), then the OP's AT&T Yahoo! account(s) would not be inactive either.

Hopefully, it the OP still needs assistance, he will come back to this thread with some details.

Ray2047a
@sbcglobal.net

Ray2047a

Anon

Does AT&T Cancel Email For Non Use

Several months ago I started getting a message from Gmail they could no longer retrieve mail from my information. Spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get it to work and gave up since I hadn't really used the account in a long time. Also tried accessing using an email client but no luck.

Tried again tonight trying to access through my online account for my DSL. Got a message the Email address was not valid. Tried both SBCGlobal and Att. I was wondering if the email address gets deleted for non use after awhile.

They do manage to send my bills to my Gmail account but I don't seem to get notices like rate increases.

I have Dry loop service. Originally it was through the SBC-Yahoo service back in 2005.

NetFixer
From My Cold Dead Hands
Premium Member
join:2004-06-24
The Boro
Netgear CM500
Pace 5268AC
TRENDnet TEW-829DRU

1 edit

NetFixer

Premium Member

said by ray2047:

Several months ago I started getting a message from Gmail they could no longer retrieve mail from my Gmail account. Spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get it to work and gave up since I hadn't really used the account in a long time. Also tried accessing by setting up an email client but no luck.

Tried again tonight trying to access through my online account for my DSL. Got a message the Email address was not valid. Tried both SBCGlobal and Att. I was wondering if the email address gets deleted for non use after awhile.

They do manage to send my bills to my Gmail account but I don't seem to get notices like rate increases.

I have Dry loop service. Originally it was through the SBC-Yahoo service back in 2005.

said by Ray2047a :

Does AT&T Cancel Email For Non Use

Several months ago I started getting a message from Gmail they could no longer retrieve mail from my information. Spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to get it to work and gave up since I hadn't really used the account in a long time. Also tried accessing using an email client but no luck.

Tried again tonight trying to access through my online account for my DSL. Got a message the Email address was not valid. Tried both SBCGlobal and Att. I was wondering if the email address gets deleted for non use after awhile.

They do manage to send my bills to my Gmail account but I don't seem to get notices like rate increases.

I have Dry loop service. Originally it was through the SBC-Yahoo service back in 2005.

Umm, OK. Repeating it almost verbatim makes the meaning much clearer than the first time.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
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Netgear FR114P

NormanS to Ray2047a

MVM

to Ray2047a
If that is supposed to be a clarification of the original problem statement, it isn't working.

My response does not change, much. I've never seen evidence of cancellation for non-use. What I have seen is "phishing" e-mail, claiming to be from AT&T (but actually not) stating that idle e-mail accounts will be canceled, unless the subscriber "proves" they still use the accounts by providing the login details (username+password). These are not from AT&T; no service provider will send requests for login details out of the blue.

If your login no longer works, have you, maybe, responded to such a request? Along with the noted security lapse by Yahoo! Voice (I believe it was), this would account for a login failure.

I will reiterate: If your account has actually been compromised, the hijacker very likely will change the login, causing the failure you see. I have a relative who had this happen; probably due to a brute-forced weak password.

I strongly recommend you go to »mail.yahoo.com and try this:

Password reset request.

If that does not work, you will need to contact Yahoo! support for further assistance.

If you think my advice is off base, you will need to improve your problem statement; as stated (twice, so far) it is too ambiguous.

PeteC2
Got Mouse?
MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT

PeteC2

MVM

said by NormanS:

My response does not change, much. I've never seen evidence of cancellation for non-use. uous.

Agreed. For what it is worth, I dropped AT&T dsl over a year ago and still have my AT&T/Yahoo mail account though I visit it seldom...
ClearFir
join:2012-04-09
Branford, CT

ClearFir

Member

Me too...dropped AT&T months ago and I still get a lot of mail via the old AT&T/Yahoo address.

David
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL

David to ray2047

Premium Member

to ray2047
If it's a free account it's at yahoo's discretion on when they can kill it at the non-use point.
ray2047
join:2009-06-21
Houston, TX

ray2047

Member

Well this has been a total embarrassment for me. I made a typo in my first post which made the post impossible to understand. I have though gotten the info I wanted. Thanks to all who responded. Consider this thread answered.
tivoboy
join:2004-05-10
Menlo Park, CA

tivoboy to ray2047

Member

to ray2047
What was the response you got? I'm about to cancel ATT DSL after about 10 years, and use the primary @sbcglobal.net account as my goto account.
ray2047
join:2009-06-21
Houston, TX

1 edit

ray2047

Member

quote:
What was the response you got?
Not so much what was was written in the replies but what I finally remembered. I suspect when I switched from POTS+DSL to dry loop 6 or 7 years ago the Email didn't transfer over. It wasn't till a few days after I started this I remembered the easiest way at that time was to get dry loop first then cancel POTS+DSL. Maybe I never set up a new Email account but thought I had because till a few months ago no complaint from Google they couldn't "POP" my AT&T account so I was sure I had one.Now not sure. Basically this was a screw up on my end probably.

None of what I learned here though can probably help you.

Apologies to all here for even stating this thread. If it can be deleted please do.
mdurkin
join:1999-08-11
San Bruno, CA

mdurkin

Member

That may coorespond with when gmail changed their servers to be very strict about SSL certificates when popping email. I think it was around December 11th. If it didn't like the SSL certificate for some reason, it would refuse to continue with the session. For example self-signed certificates suddenly didn't work, and other discrepancies could also make it fail... perhaps you had given gmail a hostname for the POP server that didn't match the SSL certificate. Gmail did this without warning and it caused problems for a lot of folks; there were threads on google's own forums complaining about it, especially that the change was made with no notice at all. There may be more than one thing going on in your case.

NetFixer
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NetFixer

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said by mdurkin:

That may coorespond with when gmail changed their servers to be very strict about SSL certificates when popping email. I think it was around December 11th. If it didn't like the SSL certificate for some reason, it would refuse to continue with the session. For example self-signed certificates suddenly didn't work, and other discrepancies could also make it fail... perhaps you had given gmail a hostname for the POP server that didn't match the SSL certificate. Gmail did this without warning and it caused problems for a lot of folks; there were threads on google's own forums complaining about it, especially that the change was made with no notice at all. There may be more than one thing going on in your case.

The SSL certificate problem may be spot on. My Windows and Linux email servers poll some AT&T/Yahoo! accounts, and the server logs frequently have SSL certificate warning entries for the AT&T/Yahoo! email servers. In my case, the local email servers just log the warnings and continue, but Google may indeed handle it differently for "POP'd" email accounts.
ray2047
join:2009-06-21
Houston, TX

ray2047 to mdurkin

Member

to mdurkin
quote:
That may coorespond with when gmail changed their servers to be very strict about SSL certificates when popping email.
Thanks, I was not aware of that. Maybe I will take another stab at setting it up in K-mail or Thunderbird.
tivoboy
join:2004-05-10
Menlo Park, CA

tivoboy to ray2047

Member

to ray2047
Well, I just had to cancel my ATT Dry Loop DSL (had it about six years now, had DSL+POTS five years prior to that) since ATT couldn't offer DSL at my new location. They tried to sell me on the UVERSE at the new location, but said they could only deliver the 1.5MB version. WTW, why would they even put in service like that somewhere with such poor quality.

Anyway, the company line was, "somewhere 45-60 days after cancellation they will email you to allow you to keep you email if you subscribe to dial-up internet" Are you KIDDING me?

So, who controls the email address, is it YAHOO or ATT?

David
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL

David to ray2047

Premium Member

to ray2047
both actually, and right now it's just a free dial up account. After the 60 day limit, next time you log in to the account it will have you convert it to a free account then.

for the next 45-60 days you will have full SMTP/POP access. After 60 days, you either have to pay to continue it, or convert to a free yahoo/AT&T account. The choice is yours at that point.
tivoboy
join:2004-05-10
Menlo Park, CA

tivoboy to ray2047

Member

to ray2047
thanks for the info. I normally use this account as IMAP account on phones, mac mail, etc. I don't use any third parties like goog to try and pop or imap it to my other goog accounts.

So, when/if one converts to a non-free account, is that ultimately with yahoo or ATT? Can one convert to a "free" and then pay for the imap upgrade with yahoo and also KEEP the @sbcglobal.net domain reference?

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

said by tivoboy:

So, when/if one converts to a non-free account, is that ultimately with yahoo or ATT? Can one convert to a "free" and then pay for the imap upgrade with yahoo and also KEEP the @sbcglobal.net domain reference?

It is with Yahoo! Before paying for the upgrade, but after canceling service with AT&T, start by logging in at 'mail.yahoo.com'. I don't recall if I had to do anything special, but there may have been some forms to click through. After I quit AT&T, I tried using, 'mail.imap.yahoo.com'. It worked for me; though I have been lazy about rebuilding this system after an HDD failure, and haven't tried it lately.