Google Authentication Woes

[IainC]

I think I may be fucked. I bought an AT&T PAYG SIM to use with my Android phone while I'm in the US. Connectivity is fine however I cannot log in to my Google account on the phone. This is a problem as the phone is also my authentication device for the two step account protection so I also can't log into Gmail on other PCs because I don't have access to the Google Authenticator app.

If I log in on my phone I get the password field and then a CAPTCHA and then I'm back at the password field again. I don't need to reset my password, I know what it is. I just can't log into my Google account on my phone. I tried putting my German Vodafone SIM back in, winced as I ticked the data roaming box and tried logging in with that but that didn't work either.

I really don't want to do a factory reset on my phone but I would very much like to have access to all my shit.

Any Google gurus (Quinton?) able to help with this?

[Trippy]

Google's authentication systems are seriously fucked up. I've had the exact same problem you've described multiple times because of how Google App accounts are not the same as generic Gmail accounts and you can't always tell from where you are logging in from which authentication system you are trying to connect through. Also for some unknown reasons accounts will become "locked" but of course it doesn't tell you that when you try and log in. If you somehow manage to navigate through the byzantine help pages you might end up here:

https://www.google.com/accounts/UnlockCaptcha

which sometime works, sometimes doesn't -- it's basically just a crap shoot. Also since you are using Google Authenticator I'm not sure this would even work for you.

You can Google more about this problem -- lots of people have it -- and there might be tips as well for somebody like you that's using the authenticator.

[Quinton]

Do you mean you can't get past the lock screen on the phone or that you can't log into Google services on the phone?

The OTP app should only require the former.

Does your Google account have recovery-by-sms enabled?  If so and if you can use your regular SIM here (roaming) to get the SMS, that might be an option to get things sorted out.

[IainC]

I log into motoblur ok. I can then use the phone as a phone and as an internet device. I can see my contacts in the contact list, I can log into the apps that require separate logins such as Facebook, yahoo mail and I can even open gmail and see the last few emails sent to my account prior to the point where I turned off the data connection on leaving Germany. If I try and send a mail from the account then it sticks at sending and I can't sync, refresh or load older emails. If I open my applications list, the Google Authenticator app isn't shown and if I try and use the market it sends me to the Google account password prompt as below.

I have a notification that says 'Sign in error for <my gmail address>'. If I open that I get a password prompt screen for my google account. It says 'you entered the wrong password or your account has changed. Please re-enter your password.' Below that it has my gmail address as a username and a text field for a password. If I enter my password I get a captcha and when I complete that successfully I'm back at the password prompt screen as above.

I know what my password is, I know I am completing the captchas correctly but I can't get into my account. I do have a backup email address but it's my work address and I have to be at my desk ~9000 miles away to access that. I'm pretty sure I don't have recovery by SMS enabled.

[Quinton]

Ugh.  I was under the impression that Authenticator was supposed to work even if you have no network access at all (since you might be using your phone for OTP somewhere where you don't have any cell coverage). 

It's also odd that authenticator isn't showing up in your app list -- have you tried poking around under all apps from the launcher (not sure if moto mucks with the launcher in BLUR...)?  I assume you had it installed before you ran into this issue.

[Prospero]

I had something similar happen recently when my beta version of iOS had a fit. I had to get into my Google account using one of my pre-printed passwords, turn off 2-factor authentication entirely, and set my phone again. Just deleting the phone as my authentication device wasn't good enough.

[Talpidae]

I had that problem for a second E-mail account.  The solution was to open up the youtube app and log in with the offending google account there and it automatically added it.

Totally fucking strange.

[Sand]

I had problems getting authenticated again with my nexus phone after manually reinstalling the app Visual Voicemail. Never would reauthenticate. I finally gave up. Visual voicemail wasnt worth the headache.

[IainC]

I finally sorted it out. Part of it was me being a bit blonde and some of it was due to Google not making it clear what password they were looking for.

I didn't see the authenticator app in my apps list because I was looking under 'G' for 'Google Authenticator' (every other Google app is prefaced with the brand name). Of course it was there all the time under 'A' for Authenticator....  

Once I had access to that, I could then log into my Google account on the PC here and go drilling through settings. Originally I was just going to turn off the 2-step authentication but then I found references on a random HTC support forum to the 'issued auth subtokens page' which doesn't appear anywhere on my dashboard page. I went  there and found that an Android device is a device that needs a password generated by that system rather than using my Google account login - despite the fact that the password prompt window on the phone is asking for my Google account password. I generated an app-specific password for my phone and, like magic I was able to use it to log in.

So, all solved but it's entirely non-obvious not only that you need a different password from your regular Google account, but also that it's a password generated by a system that isn't even visible from the Dashboard.

Edit: Talpidae, I tried the Youtube trick as well and it just spat me back to the regular Google account login prompt.

[Obo]

I was having that problem with the captcha/password prompts yesterday when trying to access the marketplace. The username seemed to have switched to a youtube login instead of my gmail account that I use for the market. I eventually managed to sort it out by getting in to the markets menu and selecting the correct account, in between the half second gaps it took for the prompts to refresh for each step.

[Sand]

I generated an app-specific password for my phone and, like magic I was able to use it to log in.

How? This might solve my visual voicemail authentication problem as well!

[IainC]

I generated an app-specific password for my phone and, like magic I was able to use it to log in.

How? This might solve my visual voicemail authentication problem as well!

Go to the auth page I linked above and at the bottom is a system for generating app specific passwords for anything that needs to be authenticated with your Google account but doesn't go through a web interface (such as the entire OS of an Android phone)