[Discuss] bios upgrade appears to have broken access to my google account and gmail

[Peter Willis]

Request Google’s help.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185834?hl=en&ref_topic=7189195 <https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185834?hl=en&ref_topic=7189195>

They should be able to help you via technical support.

P


> On Aug 4, 2019, at 9:07 AM, B. E. Irwin <beirwin at shaw.ca> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 4 Aug 2019, Murray Strome wrote:
> 
>> I think that I have encountered this problem. However, most times when I log in to google from a new place, I just get a security alert in my recovery E-Mail addresses.  This happened three times yesterday because I was demonstrating Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha, Tiny Linux and Bhodi Linux from live CD and/or USB yesterday at the meeting at QF yesterday, all three of which were considered new devices.  However, I don't have two factor authentication enabled so I did not have to enter a code.  I think your problem sounds as if your recovery E-Mail address might be another gmail account, which you would not be able to access on your new computer until it is authenticated. Can you login to your gmail from Barbara's (or any other) computer? If so, you might try changing your recovery E-mail to a non-Google account, especially for two factor authentication.
>> 
>> I hope that might help.
> 
> Hi Murray (from Alan):
> 
> Thanks for your reply which indeed helped me make some progress toward
> clarifying the issue.
> 
> I frankly don't remember much about setting up my gmail (actually
> google) account 15 months ago except for username and password since
> it was one of those "set and forget" deals with all access afterwards
> by getmail downloading of mail rather than browser where the only data
> getmailrc needs is essentially gmail address (i.e., username) and
> password.  In fact, I cannot remember whether I did that initial setup
> of my google account with konqueror or firefox (although I have now
> tried gaining access with both with the same bad results).  But I
> likely took defaults for most everything (whatever that means in terms
> of the security level), and we just have a landline phone with no
> texting so alerting via phone texting would not work.  Also, I likely
> left the alternative email blank (if that is possible) or specified it
> as my new gmail account.  So I am now pretty sure I am in a catch-22
> situation, i.e., the only way I could get access again from my google
> account from any computer is via the gmail account that currently does
> not work!
> 
> I will do a bit more google research on accessing gmail from multiple
> computers and browsers, but assuming I cannot get out of this catch-22
> situation, I will just have to abandon my current google account and
> instead establish a new google account with a more relaxed security
> model and/or non-gmail alternative email address that I will
> subsequently verify makes it accessible from different computers and
> different browsers.  And, of course, once that verification is done, I
> am not looking forward to the substantial effort required on my part
> to inform my various mailing lists and correspondents that the old
> gmail account is so "secure" it is completely inaccessible to its
> owner despite knowing username and password so they must switch to my
> new gmail address.
> 
> Alan
> 
>> On 2019-08-03 8:01 p.m., Barbara Ellen Irwin wrote:
>>> (This is Alan, and I am using Barbara's access to the vlug discuss
>>> list (which she kindly shared with me) rather than my own because I
>>> currently cannot access email that accumulates in my gmail account.)
>>> The necessary background information for this issue is today I took
>>> our principal computer into MotherComputers for a long-overdue BIOS
>>> upgrade (that with some luck might finally solve the AMD Ryzen 7 1700
>>> linux kernel lockups I have discussed before and which with "random"
>>> uptimes between lockups ranging from 0.5 days to 24 days with the mean
>>> roughly 8 days or so.)
>>> Although it is way too soon to say much about stability other than the
>>> system is still up after 0.3 days or so, this "new BIOS" system passed
>>> all my immediate tests except for one simple thing.  Which is I cannot
>>> access my email stored in my gmail account!
>>> For example, access to gmail is controlled via a google account login,
>>> but that login prompt no longer works for me.  Instead, I get diverted
>>> to "This device isn't recognised. For your security, Google wants to
>>> make sure that it's really you. Learn more."
>>> So unless there is some huge coincidence going on, google somehow got
>>> access to my previous BIOS version and feels I am now trying
>>> to log in from a different device (which is technically correct, but I
>>> assume most users would like to access their google account from
>>> anywhere rather than be limited to just one device with a fixed BIOS version.
>>> Google documentation does claim that you can use a firefox private
>>> page to login from some non-standard location, but so far that option
>>> has not worked for me either.
>>> And specifying a separate non-gmail account to recieve verification
>>> numbers does not work either.  The message in that case is
>>> Thanks for confirming that you can access
>>> the [alternative] contact email address that you provided. Unfortunately, Google
>>> couldn't verify that alan.w.irwin1234 at gmail.com belongs to you. Learn
>>> more about how to recover your account.
>>> Has anybody every run into this situation of being shut out of their
>>> google account whenever they try to access it from a different
>>> computer (e.g., new computer or new bios)?  If so, how did you manage
>>> to recover access to your account?
>>> Alan
> 
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