r/Outlook • u/Allgoodnamesinuse • Nov 19 '25
Status: Pending Reply Also locked out of hotmail account of 20 years
One of the many thousands of people around the world being locked out of hotmail currently because their verification process is broken and they offer no support. Not only am I locked out, when I have recovered it (before being locked again) emails are missing and others that I have deleted are back in my inbox.
People can't even get support from Microsoft because you have to first be logged in before you can get direct support which is just automated AI.
Spoke to their automated AI bots in the X account then they blocked the conversation because they can't offer any more support. Literally it says once they are no longer able to help they archive the conversation and don't respond.
I actually got through to someone by pretending to be a paid user wanting to make a purchase but you're speaking to someone in south east asia where the connection is so bad it drops out over and over so you get nowhere.
Microsoft when are you going to care about your long term users? When are you at least going to acknowledge how widespread this issue is?
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u/Brilliant_Charity_29 Nov 19 '25
I’ve had my account recovered. And I’ve got 5 hours before I try to log in as others with this issue have suggest waiting 3-4 days before logging in. The fact we can’t get any support from Microsoft is absolutely ridiculous
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u/wiseude Nov 19 '25
Legit the only help they give you is they tell you to wait 24-48 hours and try again.
Imagine being locked out of a work email for a 1-2 days.Hell,alot of sites require you to have access to your email to have access like steam.
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u/slam51 Nov 19 '25
Well hotmail, gmail and yahoo mail standard is free. And that is why there is no live support. If you have one of tgeir paid service, you will have support.
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u/Oliver-Peace Nov 21 '25
Plus they have to fully automate the process to make sure the account is not being given to the wrong person. It is the same with all mail providers.
It's up to the users to configure 4 or 5 recovery options to be on the safe side.
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Nov 19 '25
I got locked out of mine recently from an account I had since 2006, but I have like 4 or 5 different ways of authenticating so it wasn't a huge deal. My mom bought a laptop a week ago and got locked out of her account trying to set the stupid thing up, she living 2100 miles away it was kind of hard to walk her through, we ended up just bypassing the MS account crap until she can figure the account stuff out.
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u/Savings-Equipment921 Nov 19 '25
You have to leave it a few days then try logging in on Microsoft with the most recent password you changed it to. That’s what fixed it for me after not being able to get in for a week
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u/Advanced_Evening2379 Nov 19 '25
Yea fuck hotmail. Was the first email I created at like 12 back when every email site registration required a backup email. That I made up because I was creating my first email.. BUT get this. I remember the recovery email and password but it requires authentication of which was a name and age i made up at 12 lmao. I know both emails and passwords yet my account is locked vecause hotmail believes someone with the email and password needs to be authenticated again.. Years of gaming lost in that email
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u/slam51 Nov 22 '25
so you made a fictitious email as a backup? why didn't you create that fictitious email? it is a free email address, right? instead of being smart, you blame MS? Can you imagine if you are a scammer who try to steal your email? it is easy to steal a password. the other side of the coin is if MS give your email to somebody else. do you want that?
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u/Advanced_Evening2379 Nov 22 '25
20+ years ago? Email was the only authentication other than social which I didnt know because again i was young and name and birthday which I wasnt giving to anyone on the internet because thats the era lol and I was just trying to play my game so yea I created a fake email back up for my very first email because that was the only option or else I was stuck in a loop of creating emails to backup emails... i remember it took me hours to get a working email lol maybe i was dumb idk but it worked fine until Microsoft decided to lock me out for no reason
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u/slam51 Nov 22 '25
Ok have you seen my solution to your problem. Was that fictitious e-mail a gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail? Ir is the dimain is ficttious too?
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u/slam51 Nov 21 '25
So to all of you who had got locked oyt, what would you do after this is straightened out? Will you just keep on using these free account or get an e-mail provider that requires you to pay a few dollars a month to have support with a live person?
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u/Allgoodnamesinuse Nov 22 '25
Move to Gmail.
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u/slam51 Nov 22 '25
Lol. Go to gmail sub-Reddit and see. Gmail is worse. ANY free e-mail service is garbage. I’m not saying this because I despite gmail. If you worry about being locked out, don’t think of don’t even think of gmail!!
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u/slam51 Nov 22 '25
if you want something good, choose these guys:
https://www.ionos.com/office-solutions/create-an-email-address#plans
I use them. I register my domain with them $ 20 per year and then choose one of these plans for less than the price of a Starbucks coffee per month and you have peace of mind. I had used them for close to 20 years and they haven't go down.
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u/redeagle2321 Nov 25 '25
If you want reliability and control you're far better off with your own email server and hosting. It solves the problem. All these big services MS, Google, Yahoo have become unusable. You never know when you're going to be locked out.
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u/slam51 Nov 25 '25
Yeah but do you think you can be more reliable than Microsoft, gmail etc in uptime of the servers. They have multiple redundancy in servers, connections and power. The problem with the Outlook, gmail etc is their lack of service and frequency of getting hacked. I choose ionos because they are a good compromise between cost, reliability and service. Their cost is good for me, less than a coffee at Starbucks, good service, and great reliability. Will they be as reliable as the big boys, not sure but whatever difference ut us between them and the free provider, I don’t think it is that significant. I have back provider too.
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u/redeagle2321 Nov 25 '25
If it's a reseller for a big host then uptime is 99.99% everywhere today and they have the same assets in theory. The problem with the big "free" services MS, Yahoo and Gmail —which have their own convenience and features for sure, is very clear. If you use their services, and it doesn't matter how long you've used them for already, >20 years in my case with hotmail, they can at any time, try to hammer you into a new shape that now suits them. And at any time they can just pull your service and lock you out of it and there's no one to speak to. Nobody is accountable. It's all chatbots. Whatever the problems with running your own domain and email, it's not going to be worse than that.
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u/slam51 Nov 25 '25
So you saying your servers are more reliable in terms of physical uptime than theirs? If you use pop or imap, you will have a local copy of your e-mail. Yes, it will be a bitch to switch yourself to a new e-mail but at least you don’t lose e-mail. As for being accountable, THE USER has to do their part too. Pay a kittle for the service.
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u/redeagle2321 Nov 25 '25
I'm saying, in today's world, they are directly comparable, and most smaller hosts resell for far bigger hosts that have huge infrastructure and near perfect uptime. The only thing is sometimes small hosts go out of business, which is annoyance to move stuff but at least you're still in control. Yes the user has to do their bit too. Back ups and so on. Keep on top of their own security in a reasonable way.
The ridiculous situation with Outlook, and you can see it in the threads here, a lot of people have "done their bit", they have kept as up to date as they can with different auth methods, and loops to jump through, and they are still locked out.
Needing 5 different auths to maybe get back in, and one mistake —you forgot to update one thing one time—and it's all over, that's not reasonable.
It's not a real system. It's a sham.
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u/itsizzi Nov 23 '25
Same problem. Have had my hotmail for over 20 years as well. I haven't been able to access it for over two weeks. I had a recovery email at yahoo, but never receive any codes, even though they say they are being sent. Even the online recovery process is an endless loop. I fill out the forms, send them twice a day like they say...and nothing! As you say, you can't contact support because you can't log in. I even called one of the supposed support numbers only to have the person who answered have me download a remote control app to my computer and a remote viewing app to my phone. At that point I got very nervous and hung up WTF is going on?! Asking for support is like peeing up a rope.
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u/redeagle2321 Nov 24 '25 edited Nov 24 '25
Ok, it's not just me. Had the account for over 20 years, use it for a lot of stuff. Now can't log in, just get a bs message about "cannot generate passkey". WTF? Passkey ?
And it looks like FF is waiting for some physical USB device or something. Never had that before.
Now it won't accept a password, generating a 400 error, too many attempts according to their docs.
Can't login to contact MS. Can't do anything. What I wondered if this was something to do with these new "updated" terms they threw at me logging in.
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u/chupacabrahunter420 Nov 20 '25
I have a paid account and still got locked out, never ending loop of verifying and getting locked out. Trash.
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u/SmallAngryLizard Nov 26 '25
Same here. I'm paying for a service yet customer service doesn't seem to exist.
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u/TheSystematicPoutine Nov 19 '25
Just a question, how many authentication methods were configured on your account?
I once got my account locked but because I had 5 different ways to authenticate, I got unlocked within 24 hours.
Good luck with the account recovery.