Problems using email clients with Outlook mail

[ojos]

I've had a Hotmail account for many years without problems. Recently I wanted to open a new account with Hotmail but I notice MS have now moved new customers over to Outlook. So I set up my new account (xxx@outlook.com) with Outlook. I noticed when setting it up for use with my email client the incoming server has changed from imap-mail.outlook.com (Hotmail) to outlook.office365.com for my new account. This change has also involved using OAuth 2.instead of a normal password.
I set up all the necessary parameters for my new xxx@outlook.com and the good news is that it accepted the information I provided. The bad news is that while it usually correctly displays my email, very regularly it keeps coming up with error messages such as:

" (consecutive errors: 10)
Error (Request is throttled. Suggested Backoff Time: 299203 milliseconds)"

It then enables me to view the full error log which currently shows:

"--- Web Test ---
Result: 200
Error:
Time: 10:50:48 - 10:50:48 (0 s) (-0000)
Data: Tue, 15 Feb 2022 02:51:00 -0800

--- Error ---
Outlook [1000: IMAP] ['outlook.office365.com' (993) SSL: 1] [Smtp: 'smtp.office365.com' (587) SSL: 2] [oauth: 1] [consec: 10]
- Error (Request is throttled. Suggested Backoff Time: 299203 milliseconds)"

I have no idea what the heck that means and what I have to do to clear up the problem. I've never had any similar problems with Hotmail.
Can anyone suggest as to how to overcome these errors?

[JeremyNicoll]

There's lots of hits in Google for a search of

outlook "suggested backoff time"

[ojos]

Originally Posted by JeremyNicoll

There's lots of hits in Google for a search of

outlook "suggested backoff time"

Sure, there are a huge number of hits but I haven't time to open & read each and every one. I'm just hoping someone here will help me with a suggestion for fixing the problem I'm getting.

[emoore]

I've seen some threads where that was due to having too many connections to the server. Try dropping it to 2.

A more likely possibility is you are running into a bandwidth limit (throttle). That might be due to your synching remote and local/offline folders. See if you can impose a limit on how large a message it can fetch when synching, or configure it not to fetch attachments unless you explicitly open them. You can do that in Thunderbird so I assume there is an equivalent in Outlook. Outlook seems to have a setting to "Sync all IMAP folders every x minutes". You might try doubling the value of 'x'.

https://help.keepit.com/support/solu...at-can-be-done talks about "you can have Microsoft temporarily raise your throttling limits on Exchange. You can do this either by disabling EWS throttling from the Office 365 admin page or by sending a request to Microsoft support."

[ojos]

Originally Posted by emoore

I've seen some threads where that was due to having too many connections to the server. Try dropping it to 2.

A more likely possibility is you are running into a bandwidth limit (throttle). That might be due to your synching remote and local/offline folders. See if you can impose a limit on how large a message it can fetch when synching, or configure it not to fetch attachments unless you explicitly open them. You can do that in Thunderbird so I assume there is an equivalent in Outlook. Outlook seems to have a setting to "Sync all IMAP folders every x minutes". You might try doubling the value of 'x'.

https://help.keepit.com/support/solu...at-can-be-done talks about "you can have Microsoft temporarily raise your throttling limits on Exchange. You can do this either by disabling EWS throttling from the Office 365 admin page or by sending a request to Microsoft support."

Thanks for your input. However I'm confused by this reference to "too many connections" and overloading of syncing etc. Note the following:
1 I'm using the following:email clients with my outlook email address:
Thunderbird
Pop Peeper
Bluemail
Note that I'm not using Outlook as an email client.
2 The volume of email sent to this outlook address is absolutely minimal (usually less than 1 a day and no attachments) .I therefore cannot understand what problem there might be with overloading of connections or syncing? My email clients are picking up other email (including Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail etc etc) without the slightest problem.

I've been working with email clients for many years and never experienced any of the problems I'm faced with while trying to access the mail from this outlook address.
I'm wondering if the problem is simply with the server parameters I have had set up on my email clients as follows:
- server type IMAP
- incoming server outlook.office365.com, port 993
- unlike all my other email address connections, it's using OAuth 2 for validation.

I can't find any parameter in any of my email clients to drop number of connections to the server. Nor can I find any setting called "Sync all IMAP folders every x minutes" - where in my listed email clients can I find those settings?

[JeremyNicoll]

You said:

"2 The volume of email sent to this outlook address is absolutely minimal (usually less than 1 a day and no attachments)"

which covers current traffic arriving at the server. But was there already contents - perhaps imported from somewhere-else - there? (If so, possibly syncing that to something might cause more traffic than you're expecting.)


Another thought is whether the throttling is per session (which is presumably just to your new account) or whether it's by connecting IP address - which could include requests from other machines on the same LAN.


Also, you mention three clients. Are all three simultaneously polling the server?


In the error message you first quoted, there was this text:

(consecutive errors: 10)

Were these consecutive errors more instances of the one you mentioned, or something else?

[ojos]

Originally Posted by JeremyNicoll

You said:

"2 The volume of email sent to this outlook address is absolutely minimal (usually less than 1 a day and no attachments)"

which covers current traffic arriving at the server. But was there already contents - perhaps imported from somewhere-else - there? (If so, possibly syncing that to something might cause more traffic than you're expecting.)


Another thought is whether the throttling is per session (which is presumably just to your new account) or whether it's by connecting IP address - which could include requests from other machines on the same LAN.


Also, you mention three clients. Are all three simultaneously polling the server?


In the error message you first quoted, there was this text:

(consecutive errors: 10)

Were these consecutive errors more instances of the one you mentioned, or something else?

It's worth mentioning that I've had the xxx@outlook email address for about 5 years but, until the last fortnight I only ever accessed the email through webmail (and not email client). This email address is only used for incoming email limited to very small notifications with no attachments at all. Over the 5 years it will have received just a few dozen tiny emails. I normally only use xxx@outlook.com for incoming mail and not for sending email.
I only started using email clients for this address less than a fortnight ago. The only emails arriving inwards during this period have been notifications from Microsoft saying "New app(s) have access to your data". So the xxx@outlook.com mailbox is pretty much empty and there's nothing to sync most of the time. For all practical purposes it's virtually unused. All the activity on my personal email is managed by another 20-odd email accounts which is where my "real" email actually arrives.
I've had all my email clients working simultaneously polling those 20-odd email accounts for years without the slightest problem. Since adding this xxx@outlook.com as an additional account, all the remainder have to continue to work perfectly.
In the last 24 hours I've had no incoming mail at all to xxx@outlook.com[ yet it's generated error messages:
"Error (Request is throttled. Suggested Backoff Time: 299203 milliseconds)".
Meanwhile all my other email accounts with vastly larger traffic and email size don't show the slightest sign of any problem at all.
I am totally mystified how zero traffic for 24 hours can still generate the error messages.