Forum Discussion
Multi-factor Authentication breaks outlook
Please be aware that Microsoft has announced that it is going to forbid App passwords (i.e. basic authentication) for clients accessing Outlook Web Services beginning in October of 2020. I've been testing Outlook on Android and there are currently many issues regarding 2-way, unattended, sync of contact information between Office 365 and Outlook App for Android. I've reported all of the issues I identified to Outlook App support, and they say they will address them. I'm also hoping that Android App providers like Samsung Mail App and Google Gmail App will be updated to support Modern Auth.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Exchange-Team-Blog/Improving-Security-Together/ba-p/805892
Thanks to a post by Phillip Lyle on https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/basic-auth-and-exchange-online-february-2020-update/ba-p/1191282, I discovered that Samsung Native Email App supports "Modern Auth". I'm running Version 6.1.11.6 on Android Pie.
You have to remove the existing "Basic Auth" account from the email app, and add it back by selecting "Office 365" type of account instead of "Exchange" type of account.
As you are doing this, the setup will prompt you with the Microsoft Modern Authentication dialogue box to log you in.
This will also re-create your calendars and contacts, so you might have to re-customize things like Calendar Color, Custom Ringtones (which are stored in the Contacts information), and Mail Signatures. You might want to check all of the settings in Calendar, Contacts, and Mail before removing the "Basic Auth" account instance.
Finally, when complete, you might want to delete the App password that you used to authenticate the "Basic Auth" account on Android from your Office 365 account. Then, if you use a device that you forgot had Basic Auth access to your Exchange Service, the login will be rejected and you can install a Modern Auth app on the forgotten device.
- Our issue was mainly with Outlook 2016 client on Windows 10. Long story short, Outlook was communicating to o365 using Modern Auth, but Basic auth. Ran MS SARA which was flicking a switch somewhere in the windows profile which addressed our issue. As far as the outlook app goes. I have pushed a modern Auth Mail Profile to Android and IOS using Itunes without issue.
Doing this the APP is now using the users network pass instead of the APP Password.Christian Taveras years later (though this thread was still active only a couple of months ago) I have one more potential culprits and an actual solution versus a work around/hack - for everyone's sake hopefully its the solution once and for all, as it should take you 5 minutes to make a single global change.
The solution came from continual link following from one of the replies above to Microsoft, back to other forums and in a loop but I pieced together the actual problem and was able to then find the solution. I figured I'd post this to help someone to cut to the chase versus having to following the same rabbit hole I did. I tried SaRA to no avail (just like with a couple of your tenants) and recreating the windows profile was the only solution that seemed reliable - not really an organization wide option.
I noticed, like you, I had a problem with some users, not all. I subsequently identified these users were all older tenants. I then found an article from Microsoft that said "For tenants created before August 1, 2017, modern authentication is turned off by default for Exchange Online and Skype for Business Online."
Essentially, try as you may with local options when your tenant attempts to authenticate with Exchange Online, O365 is forcing Outlook to use basic auth, not modern auth. So your "switch flicking" from SaRA did something server side not local or it changed something in the local registry that ignored O365 asking for Basic Auth. This could explain why registry hacks work. Andrios, iOS, and OSX applications only have modern auth so they cannot have the problem (
only the application native to a Microsoft Operating system).Solution... force all users to Modern Authentication. In retrospect this makes sense as I've noticed new users always got the modern auth prompt even before trying to implement MFA while the old timers like myself had basic auth prompts still pop up occasionally.
Note: this assumes you are on 2016/Outlook for Office 365, 2013 users still additionally have to enable ADAL with registry changes first, then you follow the instructions below to enable modern auth with Exchange Online-> https://support.office.com/en-us/article/enable-modern-authentication-for-office-2013-on-windows-devices-7dc1c01a-090f-4971-9677-f1b192d6c910
Solution in detail:
Run Powershell - here is another gotcha, in a fun Microsoft twist of irony if you have MFA enabled for this user you will have to download the Microsoft Exchange Online Remote Powershell Module to get modern auth in the powershell environment. If your username can log in with basic auth, search->powershell->run as admin.
Connect to Exchange Online in PowerShell
Connect-EXOPSSession -UserPrincipalName mailto:chris@contoso.com
(for US based Office 365 - for others, you will need to find the URIs)
Enable Modern Authentication in Exchange Online
Set-OrganizationConfig -OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled $true
Check Status of Modern Authentication
Get-OrganizationConfig | Format-Table Name,OAuth* -Auto
PS C:\Users\StevenOsuch> Set-OrganizationConfig -OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled $true
PS C:\Users\StevenOsuch> Get-OrganizationConfig | Format-Table Name,OAuth* -AutoName OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled
---- --------------------------
domain.somewhere.com TrueNow open up Outlook, it worked instantly, I didn't even have to provide credentials as it pulled it from my laptop which already had the SSO profile that had been authenticated at login.
Retrospectively, looking at the Set-Up MFA for O365 article (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/security-and-compliance/set-up-multi-factor-authentication?view=o365-worldwide), it mentions this as well but this was just updated a couple of days ago so maybe it wasn't there before.
Final note, if you still use Skype for Business, you have to enable Modern Auth separately using the Skype specific connection and command prompts.
Steve_Osuch This was the solution! After this step. I still had to go through the Admin Web Portal>Users>Active Users> click a user then go to "manage multifactor authentication". I had to enable the users through that page as well. After your step and the one I mentioned, I am good to go! My tenant is pre 2017 as well, so your solution was correct in that we didn't have MFA enabled by default.
Solution... force all users to Modern Authentication. In retrospect this makes sense as I've noticed new users always got the modern auth prompt even before trying to implement MFA while the old timers like myself had basic auth prompts still pop up occasionally.
Note: this assumes you are on 2016/Outlook for Office 365, 2013 users still additionally have to enable ADAL with registry changes first, then you follow the instructions below to enable modern auth with Exchange Online-> https://support.office.com/en-us/article/enable-modern-authentication-for-office-2013-on-windows-devices-7dc1c01a-090f-4971-9677-f1b192d6c910
Solution in detail:
Run Powershell - here is another gotcha, in a fun Microsoft twist of irony if you have MFA enabled for this user you will have to download the Microsoft Exchange Online Remote Powershell Module to get modern auth in the powershell environment. If your username can log in with basic auth, search->powershell->run as admin.
Connect to Exchange Online in PowerShell
Connect-EXOPSSession -UserPrincipalName mailto:chris@contoso.com
(for US based Office 365 - for others, you will need to find the URIs)
Enable Modern Authentication in Exchange Online
Set-OrganizationConfig -OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled $true
Check Status of Modern Authentication
Get-OrganizationConfig | Format-Table Name,OAuth* -Auto
PS C:\Users\StevenOsuch> Set-OrganizationConfig -OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled $true
PS C:\Users\StevenOsuch> Get-OrganizationConfig | Format-Table Name,OAuth* -AutoName OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled
---- --------------------------
domain.somewhere.com TrueNow open up Outlook, it worked instantly, I didn't even have to provide credentials as it pulled it from my laptop which already had the SSO profile that had been authenticated at login.
Retrospectively, looking at the Set-Up MFA for O365 article (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/security-and-compliance/set-up-multi-factor-authentication?view=o365-worldwide), it mentions this as well but this was just updated a couple of days ago so maybe it wasn't there before.
Final note, if you still use Skype for Business, you have to enable Modern Auth separately using the Skype specific connection and command prompts.
This is how we fixed the issue.
Fix 1 was go to a different PC and setup outlook then export KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity and then go to the PC that is not working and delete all the keys from within this directory and then import the exported file from the working PC.
Fix 2
We went to KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity and removed these entries in the registry.
"ConnectedAccountWamAad"="eba13797-f788-4703-be3b-eb3bcd516147"
"ConnectedWAMIdentity"="eN64CdJkOrIQs11PRFgzde4uBi5v7oEeiNK5ZF4JXFk"
"DisableADALForExtendedApps"=dword:00000000
"DisableADALSetSilentAuth"=dword:00000000"DisableHttpRequestWinTimings"=dword:00000000
"DisableSessionAwareHttpClose"=dword:00000000
"EnableADAL"=dword:00000000
"Mso99lUpdatedForADALExtendedApps"=dword:00000001
"msoridDisableOstringReplace"=dword:00000000
"msoridDisableGuestCredProvider"=dword:00000000
Afisher25Yor save my day. Thx. Fix 2 works for me.
