Stuck in an infinite loop of needing to already be signed in to the Authenticator app to approve a sign in FOR the authenticator app.

This isn't helpful because I am the admin. There's only one person on my 365 account, that's me. I can't change the 365 sign in settings on my browser unless I have a code from the authenticator app, but I can't add the account to the authenticator app without signing in to the account, which I can't do unless I have a code from the authenticator app. It's a loop just like described above.

In case anyone needs this with the new iphone 16- i had the same issue, spoke with IT at my firm. They said the issue is that microsoft authenticator actually anchors to the original phone it was installed on. So the authenticator it wants you to open is actually on the OLD phone. Unfortunately I had wiped the old phone but the IT admin at my job is able to unlock it from the old phone and can give a QR code to install into the new phone. So my only advice is to call IT, you need to have admin privileges to do this.

As an update, my problem was that because I created a business account with Microsoft under my business email address, I also needed to create a separate business Admin account (even though I'm a sole proprietor and even though that's not intuitive, as it's just me, it was necessary). The admin account (that my IT consultant created) used a special "onmicrosoft.com" email address. Once I accessed the Admin account, I was able to (1) create an Authenticator account for the Admin account, (2) access my Microsoft Admin account online, (3) view the members of my business account (consisting of my regular business email account and my new Admin account) under my groups (one of the options on the dashboard to the left), (4) make my regular business email account an owner, (5) log into my regular business Microsoft account (this time choosing a code sent via text rather than the Authenticator app; I could have stopped there as I had access but I wanted the ease of the Authenticator app); (6) once inside my regular business Microsoft account I added Microsoft authenticator as a sign-in option; (7) followed the steps (which popped up automatically) to create an Authenticator account for my regular business email using the QR code that appeared on screen, which (8) sent an Authenticator push to my phone under my regular business email Authenticator account. So long story short, because I have a business Microsoft account, I needed a separate Admin account to manage the Authenticator login process.

Hi! I had the same nightmare and was able to call the service center, any MS service number will do. The key is to ask for "AZURE" help when prompted to specify an MS product. This took me directly to a person who was able to assist.

No, sadly not.