6 ms·
A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably.
by lkrubner 10y ago
A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft.
Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to reset my password. This lead me into a hellish 3 hour ordeal. None of the reset passwords worked. I went through the process 14 times. I would ask for a new password, I would get sent an email, I would click the link, I would end up being told I now had a Microsoft ID, I would try to use it with Skype, it would not work. I read the How To documents, I searched Google for others who might be having this problem. I tried variations in the way I was doing things.
In the end, I had to give up. There was absolutely no way to rescue the account that I had used for most of 10 years. I had to get a new account. I believe I had about 10 euros on the old account, which is now lost forever.
I am a professional computer programmer. If I can't figure out how to reset a password on Skype, then what are the chances that a less technical person can do it?
I remain a bit astonished at how bad that upgrade was.
- AdrianRossouw 10y agodid you try phoning/mailing support ?
- option_greek 10y agoI recently had to do that too :(. Lost around $5 of account balance.
- wslh 10y ago> Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. No, I am using the same id since Skype started. Never linked it to a Microsoft account. This is not a Microsoft endorsement since Skype works really bad.
- josinalvo 10y agoMe too (maybe because I am using the old skype client for linux? But I also use skype on android)
- ajeet_dhaliwal 10y agoYou can still use your Skype account at least on the Mac, iOS versions, I do, but they don't make it obvious, the arrow to change to Skype login is small.
- LoSboccacc 10y agoI am luky as I got a microsoft account with my non ms email provider in the period that was allowed on xbox
- busterarm 10y agoThis also happened to me with Hotmail and a few times with Xbox Live. I haven't tried to log into Skype in years and I don't expect to start. Live ID is the worst thing that they've ever done.
- awqrre 10y agoHotmail basically locked me out of my account because I won't give them a phone number or an alternate email address (they say "Help us protect your account")... I can edit the URL to get out of this requirement but it probably won't last forever... I probably had this email address for 15 years or more...
- brokenmachine 10y agoOh wow, how do you edit the URL? I've been locked out of my old hotmail account since they wanted my phone number. I'd like to just check if there's anything in there, then that's it for me with hotmail.
- awqrre 10y agoI login @ live.com, and then type "hotmail.com" in the address bar (now I probably can say goodbye to my very old email address)
- waskosky 10y agoHappened to me too. The Microsoft ID login method did eventually work for me but it was something like 2 hours lost over trying to get a new password through a Skype interface and website, which was a futile approach, at the time at least.
- 1ris 10y ago>I am a professional computer programmer. If I can't figure out how to reset a password on Skype, then what are the chances that a less technical person can do it? Had the same experience with the german postal service a few week ago. When you register there, you register for their shitty amazon-clone aswell. Turns out, you have only one account with one passwort, but the two sites have different password polices. My password had a '#' in it, witch wasn't allowed for the post part, but the passwort reset form didn't care, because it was allowed on the newer platform. You just can't login on the other and get no usefull error messages.
- dangero 10y agoMan that's bad. Enforcing password policies at sign-in seems like a terribly flawed idea.
- nitrogen 10y agoIt can also happen if the API call to create the user on the other system is asynchronous and/or not checked for errors, and the API enforces the same (differing) password policy.
- hafreni 10y agoI wish password policies would be standardized, but then we'd have something like this happen: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- allendoerfer 10y agoMy hoster introduced a web firewall, which thought my password was a SQL injection and gave me a plain 403 but was disabled when authenticated so allowed me to change my password to something offending again. Had a funny conversation with them where they insisted that this was beneficial, because SQL injections can happen as humans make mistakes. A few days before that another hoster updated its password policy and sent me a less secure password by mail. He also insisted that since he uses SMTP over SSL, there is nothing wrong with that. And on a not related note: The technical support lead of my dedicated mail hoster does not understand DKIM. I was trying to be reasonable and not focus on stuff others can do better, but it seems like you have to do everything by yourself if you want it done right.
- simfoo 10y agoSame thing happened to me, after multiple resets I had to create a new account. Also, I was pretty sure I had tried the correct password and it was Microsoft that had forgotten the password/hash.
- kome 10y ago> Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. I still use my very old skype account, not linked to any Microsoft ID.
- sandworm101 10y ago>I am a professional computer programmer. If I can't figure out how to reset a password on Skype, then what are the chances that a less technical person can do it? The days of 'being good with computers' are gone. UIs change so rapidly that core skills are useless in comparison to daily use. You could be a linux guru with decades of database dev skills, but any 14yo youtuber will probably navigate a website better. I'm a lawyer. I know lots about tax law, more than most accountants. That doesn't help me navigate the tax office's website. My accountant is the expert there. (Actually, even she has someone who does the web stuff.)
- inopinatus 10y agoThis isn't true. I know plenty of "Linux gurus with decades of experience" who navigate websites with the dexterity and awareness of a FPS champion. I don't know if it's a matter of choice or aptitude, but we don't all ossify as we age.
- brokenmachine 10y agoThose linux gurus are getting website experience from daily use. The point was that you could be a linux guru who doesn't get daily use, then you wouldn't have those skills despite being a linux guru.
- brokenmachine 10y agoI'm technical, and I do get daily use of many many websites, but there's still the odd one that stumps me. I blame that on the terrible UI of some websites. Especially government ones for some reason.
- undersuit 10y agoI have a similar issue with Minecraft every few months. I have a Minecraft.net account and a Mojang.com account. I'll spend 15 or so minutes setting passwords across both accounts, never really sure where I should put things. Maybe Microsoft will make it one account instead of three.
- BrandoElFollito 10y agoSame here. I was hoping that the acquisition of Mojang would quickly fix that. Now I do not have much hope anymore.
- smegger001 10y agoGood its not just me. My minecraft logins are screwed up regularly too. I also have had problems with logging into live.com based .edu account I got at college as well as my xbox live accounts. I know its not me messing up the passwords as I save them in keepass. Its like Microsoft can"t figure out how to maintain a simple login system. Its to the point where I just automaticly go to password recovery when I use a MS run service rather than seeing if it will take my password this week.
- inopinatus 10y agoTwo more credential-related UX disasters for the archives: Vodafone Australia truncate passwords to 16 characters in their sign-up form. But they will accept a 20-character password in the login form. That is how I got my account locked. Square Enix do something similar, but you can unlock your account using a secret Q&A. Unfortunately I had set my answer using a PS4, and PS4s have an input mode quirk that silently appends a space to strings. It took me two days to figure out that I needed a trailing space after my first car's maiden name. Hilariously, with Square Enix you have to get the question right too, not just the answer. If you had a dog, and a car, and a mother, and a primary school, you might need a few tries...
- thedabbler 10y agoAutistic engineers gonna autist.
- kilroy123 10y agoI had the same exact issue but even more trouble, with Xbox Live, and an old email account.
- findjashua 10y agoI had the EXACT same experience, and also lost my balance (<$10) on it. I now use hangouts for video & whatsapp for voice calling, and skype only when there's no other option.
- scoot 10y agoI lost most of my first deposit due to their "use-it or lose-it" policy in the early days (may still be in effect?). As a result, they lost me as a paying customer. I had even bought Skype compatible DECT wireless handsets, we ended up just using them for POTS calls.
- joshuak 10y agoYep, this is me too. They took $9.22, and lost me as a customer forever. Clearly didn't hurt them much. Hmm, maybe I should reconsider my business plan.
- HashThis 10y agoMicrosoft is incredibly messed up on passwords and logins. Office 365 is password hell. They ask to login with a Microsoft account and I login with an Office 365 account, and they reject it. I stopped using my Hotmail account because their password problems blocked me. I had to take my Surface into their Geneius bar because I couldn't login because of password reset problems. I couldn't use my Surface at all for 4 months because of password problems and I gave up on it. People will flee Microsoft because they fkup being an internet company or internet feature based company. They block their own customers and force them to flee away.
- TYPE_FASTER 10y agoYes. Simply entering a username into a Microsoft login page will, depending on the domain you landed on, redirect you before you enter a password. I'm assuming they are working on merging all accounts across their online products, but it's not seamless.
- muddi900 10y agoI am still using my old Skype account.
- d0lph 10y agoI know as developers we try to solve everything ourselves or with google, but did you try contacting support ... sometimes things just break.