I have been having problems sending emails from the SMTP server. This has been going on for 6 months. There was a community thread started way back in February where many people described the same problem with their accounts. Over the past few months, moderators have entered the conversation with suggestions and advice that were already attempted numerous times, and it has become clear that they are either not reading through the thread or they really don't know how to resolve the issue. Supposedly it was escalated, but any time an update is requested, they go through the SAME THINGS that were already attempted or provide no support at all. I have been as polite as possible, trying all the moderators suggestions and advice and letting them know the outcomes, even though these were already attempted by myself and others quite a few times. For the 2nd time in a month, I have had a moderator answer me with a suggestion, ask me to let them know the outcome, and then the thread was locked. This is awful support service.

To describe the issue, once again, for the bajillionth time, I want to send emails from my hotmail account using gmail and the outlook SMTP server. I have done this for 2 years now without any problems until a few months ago when I kept getting error messages after sending emails. Then anytime I tried entering my password to authenticate on the SMTP server, I would get this message: 

Authentication failed. Please check your username/password.  [Server response: 535 5.2.1 Login to your account via a web browser to verify your account. code(535) ]

There was a thread where someone suggested linking another account to the account you were trying to send messages from, essentially forcing two-step authorization to stop. This worked until Microsoft decided to remove the linking accounts feature without warning. Now I am back to square one and I want a solution! Or, at the very least, I deserve enough courtesy and respect to be told the issue won't be resolved and that I can move on.