Can't Set Up ATT Email

[Susanbee749]

I'm about to tear my hair out. I have been using the built-in email app on this phone for several years. My email is an sbcglobal.net one. Suddenly I can't log in. It says my password isn't right. I deleted the email data and cache. I deleted the account. But when I try to set up a new account, it just gets in a loop and keeps asking for the email address and password. Sometimes "202" appears on the screen. This email address and password are working just fine on my PC and on my Samsung galaxy tablet. I'm totally baffled.Truly appreciate any advice,!

 

[Dannydet]

Try a factory reset of the device.
Backup anything you want beforehand.

 

[svim]

Since apparently your SBCGlobal email account appears to be OK and it does seem to be just that particular email app that went bonkers, before using a more drastic measure like a Factory Reset it might be more prudent to just focus just on the email app problem you're having.
You mentioned trying Clear data on the email app, but try doing that again and then restart your phone before trying to re-add your account info. If you're still receiving error messages trying to just add your account, give some thought into using a different email app instead of the default app. Third-party email apps tend to have more extensive feature sets and more options to customize/optimize the user interface. I like the K-9 Mail app, it has a large number of user options to tweak if you want to, but Aqua Mail and Blue Mail are also very popular and get good online reviews. There are a lot of viable alternatives to choose from.

 

[Susanbee749]

SVIM, I wish I had taken your advice before doing the back up and factory reset. Contrary to everything I read on-line about backing up the phone to Google Drive, it absolutely did not back up everything (or hasn't restored everything and I can find no way to restore some things like photos and apps). However I copied the photos to my PC ahead of time thank goodness. So back to the original issue: you guessed it: even after all the hassle of the factory reset, I still can't set up the sbcglobal account. I set up Gmail just fine. So I will follow your advice and get a different email app. Thanks.

 

[svim]

Bummer. There is a long-standing and misleading problem if you were using the Google's backup and restore service buried in the Settings menu. That applies primarily to Google apps and services so all your third-party personal data may or typically is not included (it will if there's a tenuous link to Google apps but for the most part it's the user's responsibility to set up a backup solution for all their personal data and such). It would be nice if Google actually made this clear and evident in its documentation (and rename that option so its name isn't so deceptive) but whatever.

A major obstacle is the Android environment is really diverse and there are any number of variations made by different vendors that implement their own, unique alterations to the base Android install they used on their also wide variety of models. Most people see smartphones as being so similar in general appearance but inside each different model there are a countless number of different hardware configurations. So while Apple can provide its users with a really comprehensive and seamless backup/restore service for its mobile devices (Apple has strict control over both hardware and software development) with Android it's a matter where its less curated and less restricted diversity also involves problems with things like a universal backup/restore utility.

But in your instance, it's good to hear you had a backup of your photos. You might want to start using Samsung's Smart Switch:
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/app/smart-switch
It's developed and maintained by Samsung and while it works with a limited number of other non-Samsung models it's primarily intended to be used as a multi-function utility for Samsung devices. It also includes a handy backup and restore feature that will allow you to do a fairly comprehensive backup (and restore if needed) of your S10e. It's also useful to transfer your user account data to a different phone, especially if you later opt to upgrade to another Samsung phone (there's a compatibility list in that link listing some of the other models it might work with).

 

[Susanbee749]

I just want to say thank you for your detailed reply to my 2nd message. I am going to confess that after I had installed bluemail and went to set up my sbcglobal account suddenly I remembered that ATT had wanted its users to set up an email key, which I had done. When I used that as the password then I was able to set up the account fine with bluemail and probably that was the problem all along. However, why didn't Yahoo (manages ATT email, as you probably know) just tell me that my password wasn't right!!!?? It would have saved me a ton of hassle.
You are so right about the Android issues. Every time I search on-line for a solution to some problem, it takes many tries to find a solution that actually works with my phone. Samsung's help is not all that helpful. I will follow your suggestion to use the Samsung back up. I had, some time back, used the Verizon back up and when I had a problem with my contacts, even a Verizon technician on the phone could not retrieve my contacts backup even though we could see that I had made the back up. So I definitely gave up on that!!
Thanks again!!