How to fix the "InvalidCredentials INTERACTIONS REQUIRED"

I followed all of these steps with no solution. I'm a home user, so no administrator (I guess that's me?). I set up a support ticket and asked for a return call 18 hours ago, and no return call as yet.

Hi @Courtney,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Thank you for reaching out regarding the error code INVALIDCREDENTIALS INTERACTIONREQUIRED. This error code typically indicates that your credentials need to be refreshed through an interactive sign-in. This can happen due to expired or invalid authentication tokens, recent password changes or account updates or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or Conditional Access policies requiring user interaction.

To help determine the best solution for your situation, could you confirm the following details:

• Could you confirm whether this error occurs when signing in to the Outlook desktop app or when using Outlook on the web?
• If the issue happens on the web, could you try signing in using an incognito/private browser window and see if the problem persists?

While waiting for your answers, here are some steps you can try to resolve the issue:  

These steps are intended for the Outlook desktop apps. If your issue occurs on Outlook on the web, please let me know so I can provide more accurate troubleshooting steps for that scenario.

1/ Clear cached credentials:

• Go to Control Panel > User Accounts > Credential Manager > Windows Credentials   
• Under the section Generic Credentials, look for any entries that has Outlook, Office or having your email address in the name and remove them.
• Restart your computer 

2/ Disconnect and reconnect work account:

• Press Windows key > Settings > Accounts > Access work or school > find and disconnect your work email address   
• Also check Settings > Accounts > Email & accounts > Account used by other apps and remove anything relates to your work account.

• Restart your computer and go to Access work or school to reconnect your account. After that, try opening Outlook again to see if the issue still persists.

3/ Contact your IT admin:

If you’ve tried all the steps above and the issue still persists, please reach out to your IT administrator. They should check whether any Conditional Access policies are enforcing interactive sign-in or blocking specific clients, as these can trigger this error. Additionally, the administrator may need to reset MFA settings for your account.

4/ Contact Microsoft Support:

If your IT administrator confirms that no Conditional Access policies or MFA settings that could be causing the issue, the best next step would be to have your IT administrator open a support ticket with Microsoft via the admin center. A technical support engineer can then initiate a remote session, review backend settings, and run diagnostics. If needed, they can escalate the case to specialized engineering teams who are well-equipped to perform advanced troubleshooting and provide targeted solutions.

As moderators, our primary goal is to provide helpful guidance and support through general troubleshooting steps. While we don’t have access to internal systems or administrative tools required to resolve account-specific or backend issues, we truly appreciate your understanding of these limitations. We genuinely hope the information we share helps point you in the right direction, and we're always here to assist as much as we can within our scope.

For guidance on how to request support in the admin center, please refer to: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin.   

I hope the above information is helpful. You can try workaround and let us know how it went or if you need help with any steps. I'm here to support you and make sure everything is back to work properly.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I'm looking forward to your reply. 

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