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

There's a very critical step missing in this solution. You need to be signed in to change your security settings....and how do you change your security settings....if you can't get logged into Microsoft Authenticator?!

In the OP's blurry picture you can see there's no option to sign in using anything except Microsoft.

There's a very critical step missing in this solution. You need to be signed in to change your security settings....and how do you change your security settings....if you can't get logged into Microsoft Authenticator?!

In the OP's blurry picture you can see there's no option to sign in using anything except Microsoft.

Alana Wilson,

If you've either replaced or reset your phone without performing a backup of the old phone's authenticator data and restored to the new one, then the Authenticator app is useless, since the data required to perform authentication using the app is no longer available.

The only way possible to recover your old Microsoft Personal account in this case is to use whatever other authentication and verification options still exist, like Windows Hello Face, Fingerprint or PIN on a trusted device, password, phone number (Text), alternate email, or Recovery code (25-Digit printed or saved offline).

If you have any of these, you can use your PC device by selecting that you don't have the Authenticator (I don't have any of these, or some similar prompt at login), to get a list of these other options to try and use instead if you have them. You'll typically need at least 2 of them to make the security setting changes necessary to remove the outdated authenticator (Send sign-in notification) from the list of verification options.

Also, I recommend turning Two-Step verification - Off, a little further down that same page if you can access it, at least until you've been able to set the Authenticator back up on your new phone and perform the first backup so this situation can't happen again.

Unfortunately, the Authenticator app works differently than most consumer users are used to, since the data it contains isn't actually saved in the app itself, but rather some more secure hardware device within the phone, meaning that once that phone device is either factory reset, destroyed or lost, the authentication data it contained is lost with it.

That's why the phone backup with the Authenticator app data it includes, along with the other backup methods of authentication I mentioned above are all so necessary to recover from situations like a lost damaged or replaced phone.

Rob

You list everything that is wrong but don’t give solution

You list everything that is wrong but don’t give solution

Garnet Harrison,

If you don't have at least one alternate authentication item, or two if you'd enabled Two-Step verification on your Microsoft account, then there simply is no solution, the account is lost, assuming you're using a Personal account. You can try the Microsoft Account Recovery form if Two-Step verification wasn't enabled, but unless you have at least some of the items that requires, it's unlikely you'll regain control and only creating a new account is really a viable path.

Those using a Microsoft Work or School account should contact their IT support group or admin. If you are a tiny business using Azure where you are your own administrator, then you should try alternative methods to contact Microsoft Support directly, since as a business you may have other ways to identify yourself and regain access to your paid account that consumers don't.

Rob

This is COMPLETE gibberish. I can't USE another method; the MORON that wrote the code for this app requires two instantiations of this app to be running at the same time, which, as far as I know, is technically IMPOSSIBLE. Every damned time I try to use a different method, it slams me right back into the stupid-butted circular logic bullcrap. I supply a PIN or password that I friggin' KNOW is good, the app calls bull-puckey. I am locked out of whatever requires Microsoft Authenticator to authenticate. What the Hell GOOD is an authentication app THAT CANNOT AUTHENTICATE?

When I try to use my Google account to access it, it requires me to RESET my Google account password. WHY, damnit? How do I know that this INCOMPETENT IDIOT is not going to then lock me out of my GOOGLE account with his total incompetence? This is RIDICULOUS. How the bloody damned HELL am I supposed to be able to actually use this app? I'm assuming that this moron has a college degree...a degree in what? Idiocy? He has compromised hundreds of thousands of accounts with this...what's another word for incompetence? I'm getting tired of using the same word repeatedly. Malfeasant and misfeasant cretin.