Ask HN: Cannot log in to my AWS account

1 points by usr1106 4d ago ↗ HN

I get continuous authentication failures on my AWS account via root email. The password was in my password manager and I remembered it, 100% sure it was correct. I have 2 TOTP generators, they both show the same values.

AWS offers TOTP re-sync, but that fails with authentication failure.

I made a password reset, that was shown as successful in the Web UI and by Email confirmation. So my account is connected to my email and delivery is instantaneous. The new password does not work either.

They have an alternative authentication, but it does nothing. According to their support bot it should send an email, but it doesn't.

With so many failed attempts I get CAPTCHAs. Those are horrible, at least 40% I cannot read with 100% confidence. The characters are distorted too much.

My email has MFA, too. No signs of suspicious logins.

Their status page shows ongoing outages in Middle East, but I have not relationship to Middle East. I created a support case, but that is a private account without any paid support, so my hopes are not that high.

Any good ideas or previous experience?

2 comments

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usr1106 3d ago ↗

Support promised to reply within 24 hours.

After 25 hours a got a mail with probably copy-paste text. It advises me to to take exactly those steps that I had explained them as not working.

Took those steps again and again they don't work.

Did I expect anything better? TBH, not really. Probably the only way is to close my credit card.

usr1106 1d ago ↗

2 days later support called me. The support person was professional and we tried a lot of stuff like different browsers, private windows etc. to no avail. He disabled MFA to narrow down the problem. I got an email confirmation about that and no OTP is asked anymore. So no doubts it was done correctly.

Now the situation is: I can change my password using the the forgotten password process. I get an email that the change was successful. But the new password does not work.

They promised to escalate and gave no estimates when something might happen...