"Enter network password" windows repeatedly popping up on Outlook email

Can you sign into webmail.cox.net with the same username/password? If so, could be a issue with your PC's user profile not saving the password correctly. Usually have to delete the account and recreate. You won't lose any email, since your not touching your inbox, only account settings. For more info see here.

Another thing to look for is if you have any other accounts set up in your Outlook besides your main cox email. From Outlook go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Email. Should look something like this. Its possible it's asking for the user/password for a different account.

Thanks Health Edge. Yes, I can sign in okay with same username/PW. Cox tech *said* all 6 accounts would have the same PW moving forward. I found that 2 have the new PW, the other 4 the previous PW. But both work fine and I can log into webmail for each email addy with the user/PW I have. If I go to File, Account Settings, I see all 6 addresses in a list. If I click on them individually to "test account settings" (which I've just done) they all perform fine. (So, after perhaps 18 enter network password popups this morning, all 6 accounts just tested fine.) Re que #1 - tech deleted and we recreated an account (perhaps all, I can't remember.) My own tech did same on all 6. All are set up precisely as they are meant to be so I don't really want to keep repeating this step of recreating the accounts. It's not solving the problem. Thanks, though! Hopefully someone will have other ideas as I think I will throw computer trhough window if I have to deal with Cox support one more time and get no resolution. Thank you.

Health Edge said:

Can you sign into webmail.cox.net with the same username/password? If so, could be a issue with your PC's user profile not saving the password correctly. Usually have to delete the account and recreate. You won't lose any email, since your not touching your inbox, only account settings. For more info see here.

Another thing to look for is if you have any other accounts set up in your Outlook besides your main cox email. From Outlook go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Email. Should look something like this. Its possible it's asking for the user/password for a different account.

There used to be a solution to this with Windows XP, involving recreating a user account in Windows, and a solution for Windows 7 by doing something with a registry entry, but from what I gather any solutions are hit-or-miss, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. This is one of the most crazy maddening errors you will ever see in Windows, and even Microsoft themselves would just take you through all the same things Cox probably already has. I tried a search and get a lot of non-helpful banter and speculation, with possibly some solutions after looking at about 15 pages. Sooo...do a search on the web for Enter Network Password solution and try every solution you see that actually gives you the steps to do (which is very few, there sure are a lot of speculative morons on the internet, e.g., "It could be this, it could be that" but not offering any concrete solutions LOL).

Just to note, this is NOT a Cox issue. This is a Windows issue. Your last step if you can't solve it is to do a backup of your files and wipe the windows box and do a reinstall of the thing from your recovery disk or partition, and make sure to do a full clean install, not just a "repair windows for me". I have found that with stubborn Windows issues if you spend more than 3 hours and still can't find the solution, it's better to just do a backup/reinstall and stop beating your head against the wall. You're just money ahead time- and frustration-wise to do that after a certain point and be done with it. I know that's not a good solution for everyone, I am comfortable with it because I've been building computers for years, but if you're not maybe you have a geeky friend who could do it for you, or you can pay a computer shop about $150 to do it (there goes all that money you "saved" on the cheap windows computer).

Or just buy a Mac and get around all that nonsense (the issue has never occurred using Outlook for Mac because again, this is a Windows issue, not a provider issue). I know, not a lot of help either, but maybe at least a direction, sounds like Cox has done all they can to help you.

There was a similar issue plaguing Outlook 2010 users who used Hosted Exchange mail, that tossed an error "The action cannot be completed. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action" (Even though it is connected online of course) and it was very frustrating for tons of users, although there was a better fix for that one.

It might just be easier to switch to Thunderbird. very similar to outlook, free, no messy Microsoft fixes.

Something else you might want to try is disable each account one by one, checking to see if Send/Rec works. To disable a Outlook account, see here. When you get to a account, that when disabled, Outlook starts working, then that is the problem account. If you isolate all the accounts, and still having a problem, that that atleast narrows it down to a registry/pst file issue. I would suggest trying Microsoft support page for the problem. They mention several ways to fix the issue depending on the exact cause, but alot of it will be trial and error. 

Last, make sure to check Outgoing settings for a user/password, just in case your using authentication on outbound. It is only required when checking mail from off Cox network, and when you fill in the automated prompt, it does NOT usually update outgoing settings, only incoming.

Will answer this first. I use MS Office for my biz so don't want to switch, too complex all around. I've checked the outgoing settings and authentication required is not checked. All accounts have been disabled one by one in the process of recreating all accounts. I really don't think that is it. I will ask my tech (I've already spent a small fortune on this, oy) about registry/pst. He's tried everything he can and come up blank and says it's got to be Cox but I will do as you suggest and search Windows 8.1 on google, etc. I know it has had glitches. My computer is a Dell PC about 4 months old so no way can switch to Mac now. That's the annual budget. I appreciate you trying to help. Cox pointed me to their help pages but "enter network password", as I recall, does not come up either as that phrase or if you search error messages. Oh well. Onwards to google. Thx.

Health Edge said:

It might just be easier to switch to Thunderbird. very similar to outlook, free, no messy Microsoft fixes.

Something else you might want to try is disable each account one by one, checking to see if Send/Rec works. To disable a Outlook account, see here. When you get to a account, that when disabled, Outlook starts working, then that is the problem account. If you isolate all the accounts, and still having a problem, that that atleast narrows it down to a registry/pst file issue. I would suggest trying Microsoft support page for the problem. They mention several ways to fix the issue depending on the exact cause, but alot of it will be trial and error. 

Last, make sure to check Outgoing settings for a user/password, just in case your using authentication on outbound. It is only required when checking mail from off Cox network, and when you fill in the automated prompt, it does NOT usually update outgoing settings, only incoming.

Will go over this with my tech guy, I guess your comfort level is very different then, obviously. Also, I have large amounts of work that I keep moving from one computer to the next and, well, can't explain but to start over with a clean install would be a royal pain beyond words. A whole day was spent setting this machine up with all its programs, compatibility issues, etc. etc in the first place. Can't afford THAT again (and trusted tech of 12 years did it not geek squad.) I'm going to head off and see if I can approach it from the Windows end as you suggest. Sounds like as good a suggestion as any. Thx!

smtips said:

There used to be a solution to this with Windows XP, involving recreating a user account in Windows, and a solution for Windows 7 by doing something with a registry entry, but from what I gather any solutions are hit-or-miss, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. This is one of the most crazy maddening errors you will ever see in Windows, and even Microsoft themselves would just take you through all the same things Cox probably already has. I tried a search and get a lot of non-helpful banter and speculation, with possibly some solutions after looking at about 15 pages. Sooo...do a search on the web for Enter Network Password solution and try every solution you see that actually gives you the steps to do (which is very few, there sure are a lot of speculative morons on the internet, e.g., "It could be this, it could be that" but not offering any concrete solutions LOL).

Just to note, this is NOT a Cox issue. This is a Windows issue. Your last step if you can't solve it is to do a backup of your files and wipe the windows box and do a reinstall of the thing from your recovery disk or partition, and make sure to do a full clean install, not just a "repair windows for me". I have found that with stubborn Windows issues if you spend more than 3 hours and still can't find the solution, it's better to just do a backup/reinstall and stop beating your head against the wall. You're just money ahead time- and frustration-wise to do that after a certain point and be done with it. I know that's not a good solution for everyone, I am comfortable with it because I've been building computers for years, but if you're not maybe you have a geeky friend who could do it for you, or you can pay a computer shop about $150 to do it (there goes all that money you "saved" on the cheap windows computer).

Or just buy a Mac and get around all that nonsense (the issue has never occurred using Outlook for Mac because again, this is a Windows issue, not a provider issue). I know, not a lot of help either, but maybe at least a direction, sounds like Cox has done all they can to help you.

There was a similar issue plaguing Outlook 2010 users who used Hosted Exchange mail, that tossed an error "The action cannot be completed. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action" (Even though it is connected online of course) and it was very frustrating for tons of users, although there was a better fix for that one.