Lost recovery backup for Authenticator

Mandrake 0 Reputation points
2026-03-24T09:40:22.85+00:00

Hi,

I accidentally logged on to Authenticator on my new phone, instead of opting for restoring from backup on the setup screen. (I do think it's stupid that the Restore option is not also on top of the screen, it's easy to miss.)

The new phone overwrote the old one's backup on my Microsoft profile, and I thought I could solve it by turning backup off on the old one, and turning it back on again, as this has worked a few years ago. Now however, the old phone won't create a new backup, as there's one in the database that points to a new backup created, which actually doesn't exist. What to do? Until I reset my old phone, the logons are safe on the old phone, but I need to restore them to the new. I sent feedback and got an ID number for it, but what do I do with that now?

The old phone should be able to create a new backup, this has worked before. Now it says "Something went wrong. Please send us logs..." if I select/unselect "Cloud backup" in Settings, or select "Sign in to update backup" in the menu.

I do not want to redo the process one by one for all sites I'm using, that defeats the purpose of a backup.

Microsoft Security | Microsoft Authenticator
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