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Securing Northwestern Email: Troubleshooting and Known Issues

This page includes known issues, workarounds, and instructions for reporting your experience to Northwestern Information Technology.

If you encounter an issue not listed here, please call the Northwestern IT Service Desk at 847-491-4357 (1-HELP) and identify your account as having received Securing Email project security updates.

Decommissioning Basic Authentication for Microsoft 365 (Formerly Office 365 or O365)

After the change to decommission support for Basic Authentication for Microsoft 365 is implemented:

Issue: Devices or applications that remain configured with unsupported Basic Authentication may lose access to University email.

Expected Resolution: None

Workaround: Users may need to update their devices’ operating systems as well as their mail clients. This may include uninstalling existing applications and re-installing the Modern Authentication configured version of Outlook. Instructions are available in the E-mail and Modern Authentication Guide.

Additional information on Configuring Your Email Client for O365 is also available on the Northwestern Knowledge Base.

Comments: Where Modern Authentication cannot be used for specific devices or applications, Northwestern IT recommends users rely on Northwestern webmail (OWA) for accessing Northwestern email. Those users may also wish to review the Modern Authentication FAQ knowledge base article. 

Activating Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) for Microsoft 365 (Formerly Office 365 or O365)

Issue: Integration between Zoom or other calendar-reliant applications and users' Outlook calendar may begin to malfunction or stop updating.

Expected Resolution: None

Workaround: Users will need to reconfigure their Microsoft 365 calendar and contact integration in Zoom or the affected application, as detailed in the Applications Interacting with O365 with Duo Multi-factor Authentication knowledge base article.

Email Client Limitation for Android Mobile Devices

Issue: On some Android devices the mail application may not work with Modern Authentication; this situation is vendor-specific. (Some Android phones will work without issue.)

Expected Resolution: None

Workaround: Users can use the Outlook client for their email. Please see the Knowledge Base for set up instructions. Users may also access Northwestern webmail (OWA) via a browser.