Message that my Hotmail account needs "fixing," but it's working OK.

4 years ago

A message that something is wrong with my Outlook/Hotmail account and needs to be fixed appears at the top of the screen.

This has happened to me twice recently, when I tried to send email to a company whose email address I found online under "Contact us." Since one of the companies is Instant Pot, I assume that the company itself isn't doing anything bad, but to "fix" whatever the problem is, I am being asked to enter my Outlook/Hotmail password or passcode. That is the passcode my Dell PC required when I first set it up, so I don't want to give it away if there is something fishy going on.

I am suspicious of this message that pops up because, apart from the message itself, I have not been having any trouble at all with my Hotmail account. Can anyone please tell me what may be going on?

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Comments (3)

Richard (Vero Beach, Florida)
4 years ago
Do you usually read/send all your email using your browser?

Or do you normally use a client that runs on your computer?

Do these assumptions fit?

(1) You normally read and send emails using a client (not your browser) without problems.

(2) The only times you are asked for credentials is when you click an email link on a web page.

If both those assumptions are true then maybe this is what's happening...

The reason you have no trouble using your client is because it has your email credentials.

You've never given your email credentials to your browser but it needs them to log you into outlook.com to send the email.

For me, it would depend on who/what is asking. If it's outlook.com, I'd provide them.

(A screenshot would probably be helpful)

What might work as a test is this...

Go to outlook.com, log in, then attempt to send the email using the link found in the "Contact Us".

If it doesn't ask when you're already logged in, it was likely just outlook.com (or your browser) doing the asking.

I'm not an expert though, especially not with Windows, and I only use webmail so take what I wrote with a grain of salt.

Of course you could just copy the address, open your client and send the email. Might not learn anything that way though. :-)
mtvhike
4 years ago
I have had a similar problem when trying to send to an internet email address. The link says "sendto xxx", which directs me to Outlook, which I don't have installed on my computer. So I simply paste the argument of the sendto (xxx in the case above) into my gmail account, and it works fine.
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biwako_of_abi
4 years ago
Thank you both. For personal reasons, I was away for several days and then terribly busy and wasn't checking the email I use for Houzz messages often enough; and I somehow missed these answers. I apologize. Meanwhile, I still have no idea what happened, but I became able to use Hotmail again. I find Outlook confusing and don't really understand what it is good for, FWIW.

Richard: Neither of the two assumptions is true. At this remove, I am not positive what I did that fixed things; It is likely that I gave in and provided the requested info, but maybe I restarted my computer (which works for so many things!). Anyway, many apologies. People here have saved me from computer problems many times, and I am grateful!

Message that my Hotmail account needs "fixing," but it's working OK.

Comments (3)

Richard (Vero Beach, Florida)

mtvhike

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