Unfortunately JIRA couldn't connect to the mail server. mail server said: "AUTHENTICATE failed."

[john.jerome]

We are trying to setup a support email address, and had issues before with it. I had setup the email address previously, and emails were going to the support queue.

However, I logged on this morning and the above error message is now occuring.

I removed the email address and re-added, which then prompted with: Unfortunately JIRA couldn't connect to the mail server. mail server said: "AUTHENTICATE failed." 

I can log into the email address with no issues via web, I have even changed the password on the account and tried to setup a custom email address as a default email account, but still receiving the message :(

Any help would be amazing!

[Andrew Laden]

Anything in the logs? That should be your first stop.

Check with your email administrators and see if they made any changes.

Also, if you are using secure IMAP, you might be having a cert issue. See if they updated a cert or if it expired. (the logs will usually show if there is a cert issue.

[john.jerome]

Hi Andrew, 

Thanks for reaching out. I have mfa enabled on the account, is it something to do with the app password?

Thanks,

John

[Andrew Laden]

MFA on the mail account? I would think that would be a problem, since jira can't pass in the 2nd factor every time it logs in. Try disabling MFA. You may have to talk with your mail administrators abut setting up a special endpoint for jira to talk to.

But IMAP doesnt support MFA anyway, so I'm not sure exactly how that would be working.

Did you check with your mail admins?

[Project X]

Hi @Andrew Laden , where to find the logs? I am seeing the same error. We do not even have MFA . Just plain Microsoft Email. 

[Andrew Laden]

Assming you are a server customer and not cloud, the logs would be the the log subdirectory under your $JIRA_HOME in a file called atlassian-jira-incoming-mail.log

You may need to enable logging if you arent already.

User Admin->System->Logging and Profiling are settings to enable the incoming and outgoing mail logs.

From there you can temporarily turn on debugging for incoming mail and them look at the log. I would not leave debugging on too long, It will fill up your disk space. (regular logging is ok to leave on)

[Project X]

Hi @Andrew Laden Ours is actually on Cloud.