Can't sign into my microsoft account

[Matthew_181]

Ok, about 2 weeks ago I rebooted my computer. When I logged back into my account after the reboot, it took forever to do so. When it finally opened windows there was an error message saying it could not login to my microsoft account. It gave me 2 options. Sign out and close. If I signed out, it took me right back to the login screen so I could just sign in on a loop. If I hit close, it keeps me logged in with a temporary account.

At the time, I thought it was a hard drive issue. I checked it, it read as fine but I couldn't fix it. So I formatted the hard drive. Re-installed windows. It's been working ok since. Until today. Now it's doing the same thing. They ONLY change was re-installing the brother mfc 9130 printer software. This software was on my computer for months before with no issues, so I doubt this is it. I can't login to save some very important files and can find no way to access them from this temporary account.

What could this be? Is it something to do with windows? My hard drive? Other?

 

[jason201]

Well, the odds of this being related to your HDD are very slim (but somewhat possible, if a file level corruption has affected your user profile). You could have the HDD checked with any smart monitoring software (such as hard disk sentinel, hd tune pro etc), or by using the manufacturer's bootable diagnostic software. Other than the HDD aspect though, it's possible someone has your password and is messing with you! See if you can log-in from their site (and if not, use the forgotten password page) I'd suggest you change your password (as well as security question) just to be on the safe side.

Edit: you could also try running chkdsk to scan the drive for errors. This may also fix the issue (if it's user profile related)

 

[Matthew_181]

You're right, it almost certainly isn't hard drive related. It's doing well, I did check it. My password hasn't been changed, I've checked. I will change it, but I expect it to be the same. It wasn't changed the first time when I formatted my hard drive but everything worked again after. So something is up, I just don't know what.

Well, the odds of this being related to your HDD are very slim (but somewhat possible, if a file level corruption has affected your user profile). You could have the HDD checked with any smart monitoring software (such as hard disk sentinel, hd tune pro etc), or by using the manufacturer's bootable diagnostic software. Other than the HDD aspect though, it's possible someone has your password and is messing with you! See if you can log-in from their site (and if not, use the forgotten password page) I'd suggest you change your password (as well as security question) just to be on the safe side.

Edit: you could also try running chkdsk to scan the drive for errors. This may also fix the issue (if it's user profile related)

 

[jason201]

Could you elaborate please? How exactly did you "check it"?

 

[johnbl]

sounds like a bad network connection would not allow your Microsoft account to be validated.
I would check the cables if you have a wired network. if you are running wireless I would check the wifi driver and the router logs for errors. Routers can overheat and drop wireless connections. This would block validation of your account by the Microsoft servers

 

[Matthew_181]

It's working as far as I can tell. It's working for my wife, and my laptop.

sounds like a bad network connection would not allow your Microsoft account to be validated.
I would check the cables if you have a wired network. if you are running wireless I would check the wifi driver and the router logs for errors. Routers can overheat and drop wireless connections. This would block validation of your account by the Microsoft servers

 

[johnbl]

if the machine is a laptop, take it walk over to 3 feet from the router and see if you can log in.
it is pretty common for wireless network driver to have bugs in their power management functions.
IE the machine goes idle, the network card is told to go into low power mode, then you start using the machine again but there can be bugs in the BIOS, the electronics or the wireless driver that prevent the card from going back into high power mode. When this happens the range will go from 20 feet or so to about 2 feet. so the laptop will see the router but the laptop will not use enough power to send the signal back to the router.

often you can figure it out by moving the machine close to the router and see if you can log in. You could also go into windows device manager and find the network card, power management tab and set it to high power mode or not to sleep. the problem can be in the BIOS, or in the network driver, often you should update the bios and the network driver as a fix attempt. otherwise you have to work around the problem by turning off the power management for the device or the whole machine.

It's working as far as I can tell. It's working for my wife, and my laptop.

sounds like a bad network connection would not allow your Microsoft account to be validated.
I would check the cables if you have a wired network. if you are running wireless I would check the wifi driver and the router logs for errors. Routers can overheat and drop wireless connections. This would block validation of your account by the Microsoft servers