Microsoft Authenticator is asking me to authenticate using Microsoft Authenticator to use Microsoft Authenticator

Adrian,

It really matters whether you are using Microsoft Authenticator with a Work or School account (Azure AD) where an Administrator can remove the 2FA requirement from the account at least temporarily or instead using a personal Microsoft account, where if available you should be able to use a different 2FA authentication method like alternate email or text to receive a code in order to login and change the Advanced security options item titled Send sign-in notification, removing it in order to allow setting it up again properly.

The links to proper methods for setting up Authenticator for both type of accounts are provided in my previous long post, since though the Authenticator app used is now the same, the process for each of these are different due to the different back-ends for Azure AD and Microsoft 365/Outlook personal accounts.

Ben Coor also mentioned in his last post above that in his case, an apparent user of a Work or School account had Authenticator previously configured on another phone that must have been interfering with the new installation.

What exactly is happening in a specific case is not always the same, so you need to fully understand your particular environment and potential issues, since there's no way anyone can provide a single answer that applies to every possible situation.

Rob

New person to the thread here. Having exact same issue. I am prompted by the Microsoft Authenticator app to authenticate via the same Authenticator app. Haven't seen any actual fixes in this thread... Any ideas how to fix?

This is extremely poor design. Classic Microsoft.

Thank you for this detailed reply. I will look at the links to learn more about this. Many thanks

Yes Chidi,

The confusion using the Authenticator app with Azure versus the Personal Microsoft accounts that most consumer users coming to these forums would require are that the initial setup, management and portions of the operation for these configurations are each slightly different.

Add personal Microsoft accounts to the Microsoft Authenticator app - Microsoft Support

Add your work or school account to the Microsoft Authenticator app - Microsoft Support

That's why I was initially providing confusing suggestions myself, since I only truly became aware of these subtle differences through other threads over the time I was responding to this thread.

The problem for small organization admins as you mentioned is that they are sometimes the only user as well, since certain Azure small business accounts are created by that single user for themselves.

Unfortunately, these same users often find themselves in these consumer forums, since they're inexperienced and don't realize that the Azure accounts they've created are typically supported via the Microsoft Learn - Q&A - Azure forums found at the link provided in the following document discussing the Microsoft Authenticator app when used with Azure - Work or School accounts.

Common questions about the Microsoft Authenticator app - Microsoft Support

As you'll notice in that same document about Authenticator, the following second paragraph indicates that the Microsoft Authenticator app replaced the Azure Authenticator app, which though it undoubtedly made the technical support for both of these platforms simpler, it unintentionally lead to a huge set of user support issues relating to these often-subtle differences, leading to threads exactly like this one.

"The Microsoft Authenticator app replaced the Azure Authenticator app, and it's the recommended app when you use two-step verification. The Authenticator app is available for Android and iOS."

I hope this post summarizes the issues and helps remove some of the confusion my own involvement in this thread has caused.

Rob

For me I realized I just tried to sign into azure and it suddenly worked. I believe something was quietly fixed.

Overall, even for one user accounts like mine, I’m the admin and should not be referred to some other admin, at least the system should know such accounts and provide the other options. The problem is the other options do not show up in some cases especially with something like azure. Also the Authenticator appears to have different policies when using Microsoftonline vs live.