Forum Discussion
My T-Mobile Login Loop Bug
Dear Friends,
I just battled for days (and now overcame!) a login loop issue while trying to log into My T-Mobile.
I post this here on the off chance that it will help some other poor, confused soul, as I was mere minutes ago—and on the so-remote-it-makes-Pluto-look-near chance that it will actually get fixed.
The problem is this...
What appears to happen is that if you try to login with your phone number, y if T-Mobile thinks that you need to reset your password, there is absolutely no way to login to your account. You can't even use the mobile app. (You also can't login to contact support, because that requires logging in to My T-Mobile, and they have no email address you can contact.) (To their credit, I could have called them and attempted the verbal acrobatics of explaining this over the phone to some poor underpaid soul in a call center.)
A story by (riveting) pictures:
First, you try to login to My T-Mobile. It asks you to reset your password. (Side note, the password reset page is completely bizarre, as the checks to see whether your password passes the criteria seem to break in odd and confusing ways; a long password somehow immediately fails all of the other criteria? Anyway, moving on.) After this, you are treated to a nice infinite loop:
After trying this enough times, it may eventually just fail with the following error page:
(Repeating the above multiple times with different web browsers bears no fruit.)
If you try to, say, download the T-Mobile app with your iPhone, you'll be treated to the same process, except instead of a grey screen infinite looping, you get to see the pink app do that. It, too, will eventually give up after several attempts and show you a different error screen:
(Pause here for dramatic effect where you actually believe the error messages and that someone might fix the problem over the course of a few days.)
Now, you might think, why don't you just reset your password upfront? Shortcut the whole process and get to the point, right? Yeah, let's try that:
A-ha! Everything still fails, but you (sometimes) get a mysterious error message: "The provided user_id is not found." This is, of course, malarkey, because you've already provided your phone number and it's found your account and texted you a confirmation code and everything. But it leads us to believe... maybe the phone number is the problem?
So, repeat the above using your email instead of your phone number, and voila, you can reset your password and everything works.
In the minuscule chance that this saga works its way through T-Mobile's bureaucracy and to its developers, I offer you my humble thanks in advance for fixing this confusing hodgepodge of loops and errors.
Yours, loyally,
- A T-Mobile Customer
Nice job T-Mobile. I had a secure password, YOU F'ers forced me to change it. I'm sorry your general and corporate security sucks, I'm sorry your website developers have had major holes and bugs exploited the last couple years, and I'm sorry it's easy to hijack a T-mobie users SIM, but thats NOT my problem. Since I was forced to reset my password, and you won't let me use the same one I've used in the past (don't know why, it met all of your requirements and then some and I didn't forget it), I changed it to a much LESS secure password. The irony, you WON'T let me re-use my previously secure password, but you WILL let me use a MUCH LESS secure password? Dumb-As. So go F-off, and stop causing problems where they didn't initially exist you magenta A-holes.
I still can't get logged in - using my email or my phone number. I get stuck in the loop on the second page where it wants to confirm my phone number, and then that either just reappears or I get the "Uh Oh, it looks like we have our wires crossed.
I can't contact T-mobile Support online because you have to be logged in to do that. And I can't friggin log in.
I've called three times about this - you'd think they would want me to be able to access my account so I can pay my bill. They have no idea what is going on or why. I got a voicemail message that the tech people said "nothing is wrong" and "try logging in again" and in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and the mobile app I still get the same problem.
Can't log-in. Stuck in an infinite loop. Very frustrating.
Thanks for sharing this to the community so it could get some attention. Sincerely appreciated by a fellow T-mobile customer
I'm not a T-mobile worker... also no system is ever 100% secure. There are plenty of companies that have had similar issues ranging from retail chains like Target to actual banks like Chase. Sorry you had to change your password but is it really that big of a deal.
It's not a big deal when i want to change it. It's a big deal if I'm FORCED to change it to access my account, the account I pay for, and they have the audacity to me to say they "recommend" I change it but really they force me to do it but they hide behind the LIE recommend. It's also a big deal that I can use a LESS secure password than previously and they don't recommend against that and it's also security theater that if I had chosen not to reset it and manage my account via phone agents, that I could have let it sit out there unchanged indefinitely. If they had a security breach, contact me direct and tell me the facts then compensate me, don't wait for me to login, lie and use the word recommend when you mean MUST, and make it appear like it's MY fault.
Just a quick note to say thank you. I've been battling this off and on for months. T-mobile support was clueless about the problem. Finally able to log in thanks to your post.
Thanks for the heads up. Thanks to the forced (and broken) change password, I wasted so much time in the last few days with the stupid "The provided user_id is not found" error.
This bug is still present in recent and current versions of the T-Mobile Android app. Just read the numerous negative reviews on Play Store, which I bet no T-Mobile app/web developer or customer service pay attention to, since the bug is still present AFTER SIX MONTHS.
The app (which I believe is basically a web browser rendering engine, instead of an app with fixed layout and functions) has been very erratic lately. I keep getting B&W text with no buttons and webpage not available error "http://ma.web2go.com/" ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT
Changing password via web seems to work better on the web, after a few retries (something I've grown accustomed to, which says a lot about T-Mobile's web/app UX quality and reliability).
I struggled with this for weeks. This post helped me by having me use my email instead of my phone # - so thanks for that.. But it still didn't get me past the "Oops - wires crossed!" BS message.. I finally was able to change my password by resetting it via the browser on my phone. Maybe that worked because it was a new phone..? I don't know why I couldn't reset via a laptop browser or the phone app, but the phone browser worked on the first try. (So lesson may be that once you do it wrong on a device (ie using phone # instead of email acct), that device is not going to succeed. Try going to a different device ... maybe?
Still today SEPTEMBER 2019, I experienced this problem, it seems the T-MOBILE team is not doing enough to fix this bug, the login page is poor and has no options, I used to have the security questions there and they are now gone, and now I fell into this horrible loop with OOPS screens and other BS.
T-Mobile, do something, fix the login, let us choose the password duration and don't force us to change it and fall into this loop, remember, we have other phone companies to go.
September 5 same problem. T-Mobile supervisor admitted this is an ongoing problem with many customers. They haven't figured it out yet. Given the time that has gone by with no resolution, it's not likely to be fixed soon. I suggested they send me a hard copy bill if they want to get paid on time.
