Question A problem showing that Hotmail login issue

[Craig234]

I went to my hotmail tab today, as I keep open for years. It had a banner at the top 'you need to sign in to your account again'. Oh brother. Annoying.

I ignored it and clicked an e-mail. 'Your e-mail can't be displayed right now'. OK, I need to log in, clicked the button.

A login window came up. I entered what I hoped was the password last time I had to pick.

Then a new window comes up, 'we can't log you in' - Hal 9000 telling Dave vibes - 'you have used an incorrect password too many times'. That was the first login...

So I tried again. This time my 'autofill' gave the password in case I used the wrong one. Same error.

So I click 'change your password', the only option.

Not so fast. We need you to enter a code sent to your backup hotmail account. Oh, brother.

So I open a new tab and open hotmail and log in to the other account. When I log in - my previous account opened instead, working fine.

 

[Cilantro7536]

I agree that Microsoft's authentication flow, being redirected all over the place, is antiquated and unreliable. I have two Microsoft-related accounts that don't coexist properly in the "same" browser, requiring me to log into the other one incognito.

If I were in your shoes, however, I would also try logging into each account at least incognito, and maybe in a different browser, just to make sure that they are still accessible with the passwords. Using a different recovery email provider may also provide some failure mode independence.

 

[Craig234]

It's gotten much worse today.

It again locked me out of my e-mail and wanted to send a code to the backup hotmail account.

But now, when it gives no option to log in to the other account to get the code.

When I enter "hotmail.com" it forces a login window to the first account. By going through various clicking of ''send a code' it finally gives an option to log in to another account.

But when I log in to the other account, it just goes back to a login prompt for the first account.

It's locked in a circle.

I can't get into my e-mail at all and there's no clear way to fix it.

 

[Craig234]

Worse and worse. It was displaying e-mail headers - senders and topics - and now blurred that out.

I went to Microsoft help and finally got to a ridiculous 'account recovery form'. It wants me to remember exact e-mail addresses I recently sent to and exact subject lines - after blurring them.

It had nowhere to type things like name or explanations.

 

[Craig234]

Finally, something worked. With the little info I could send as described above, they quickly approved the reset, and even an old password I wanted t- re-use worked.