Title: Incorrect authentication data error 220 Last modified: August 22, 2016 --- # Incorrect authentication data error 220 * Resolved [Jeffsne](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeffsne/) * (@jeffsne) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/) * Hi Jason, ran into this issue on a different server (and website). Diagnostic says tool says all ports are open for celsior.websitewelcome.com, but when I configure for any of the ports, I get the message below when sending a test email: * Incorrect authentication data 220-celsior.websitewelcome.com ESMTP Exim 4.82# 2 Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:34:47 -0500 220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited, 220 and/or bulk e-mail. EHLO localhost 250-celsior. websitewelcome.com Hello localhost [192.185.83.159] 250-SIZE 52428800 250-8BITMIME 250-PIPELINING 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250 HELP AUTH PLAIN 334 AGluZm9Ad2FibHVlcy5vcmcAcnhNRWQ = 535 Incorrect authentication data * I get this error no matter the Authentication Type. Any ideas what’s happening? * Cheers, Jeff * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/postman-smtp/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/postman-smtp/) Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) * Plugin Author [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * (@jasonhendriks) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883149) * Hi Jeff. Sorry you’re having trouble! * First, please change your password right away. The output above actually contains your username and password, believe it or not. I added a warning in the latest release of Postman that SMTP transcripts should **not** be posted online. * Okay, second, the obvious answer is your username and password are not correct. From the output above we can see that the SMTP server you’ve connected to, celsior. websitewelcome.com, supports ‘plain’ and ‘login’ authentication, and you have configured Postman to use ‘plain’, so nothing wrong there. But once Postman sent your username and password the server replied ‘nope’ * So either: - Your account does not exist on the server or - You have entered your username or password incorrectly * You will probably need to open a ticket with the folks that run that SMTP server and find out why you can’t authenticate. Show them the SMTP transcript, **privately** 😉 * I hope that helps! * Thread Starter [Jeffsne](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeffsne/) * (@jeffsne) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883161) * Thanks for the quick reply Jason. I changed the password…I didn’t realize it was in there. 🙁 I checked my server and the account exists and the password is correct. * I noticed an odd thing happening with the password in the manual config settings. I would set my password, save, and then test. But, when I came back to the manual settings area, I noticed that there were fewer “*”s in the password box. I didn’t change the password, but when I went to save the config settings, the browser popped a “remember password,” like I changed it. I’ve tried several times, but it does the same thing. Perhaps that’s why I’m getting this error. * It would be interesting to see what the encoded password above resolves to just to know if that’s what’s happening. * Plugin Author [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * (@jasonhendriks) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883169) * Jeff, sounds like you’ve run into this bug (from the [changelog](https://wordpress.org/plugins/postman-smtp/changelog/)): * > Fixed a bug in Sanitizer for cases where WordPress calls sanitize twice in > a row – [known WP bug](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21989) * Please make sure you are on v1.5.4 of the plugin, and if you are, please delete the plugin and re-install. The bug above was (incorrectly) encoding the password twice, in certain situations, before saving. * You want to see what the encoded string above was? Easy: 1. Go to [http://i-tools.org/base64](http://i-tools.org/base64) 2. In data to process, choose Direct Input 3. Enter the string AGluZm9Ad2FibHVlcy5vcmcAcnhNRWQ= and click Decode * Thread Starter [Jeffsne](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeffsne/) * (@jeffsne) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883231) * Hi Jason, I had the latest version of Postman, so I deactivated and deleted, then reinstalled. However, I’m still running into the issue. Since the bug seems to trim the password to 5 characters, I made the password that long and it works. Hopefully the next version of WP will fix the Sanitizer bug and I can go back to having a strong password. * Plugin Author [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * (@jasonhendriks) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883235) * I wouldn’t count on it. That bug is two years old. * Plugin Author [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * (@jasonhendriks) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883245) * Jeff, I may have been wrong about you running into that bug then. I’ve tried it here with short passwords and long passwords and they all seem okay. * There are a couple of ways to confirm what password is stored. * On line 600 of PostmanAdminController, you can change the “type” of the input field from “password” to “text” – this will show the exact password in the browser without the ******: * ``` public function basic_auth_password_callback() { printf ( ' ``` * .. the password is in ‘value’ * Postman does trim leading and trailing whitespace from the password you enter before saving… not that anyone would ever do that? * If you find that the password you entered is NOT the password that you type in, please let me know and I will track down the issue. You should **always** use strong passwords. * Plugin Author [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * (@jasonhendriks) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883248) * Let’s **confirm** that you’re actually on v1.5.4. When you go to the WordPress Dashboard, you should see a new widget for Postman, somewhere on the Dashboard.[ [screenshot](http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/postman-smtp/assets/examples/Screen%20Shot%202015-03-10%20at%201.52.13%20PM.png)] * Plugin Author [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * (@jasonhendriks) * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883342) * You know what? There’s a week of changes to go out. I’ll just release v1.5.5. The password fix is definitely in there. Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) The topic ‘Incorrect authentication data error 220’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/postman-smtp_7c7b78.svg) * [Postman SMTP Mailer/Email Log](https://wordpress.org/plugins/postman-smtp/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/postman-smtp/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/postman-smtp/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/postman-smtp/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/postman-smtp/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/postman-smtp/reviews/) * 8 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Jason Hendriks](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jasonhendriks/) * Last activity: [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/incorrect-authentication-data-error-220/#post-5883342) * Status: resolved