Authenticator cut off from my Microsoft accounts

Question

Authenticator on my Android phone appears to have been cut off from my two Microsoft accounts for some reason.

What I have observed:

• Sign in notification which was working a couple of days ago didn't work. I was trying to sign in Outlook on a new phone to one of my accounts. The notification was supposedly sent but my Authenticator never displayed it.
• Only my two Microsoft accounts were missing from the Authenticator account list (the one listing the TOTP accounts). Four other accounts were still there. Only my Microsoft accounts disappeared.
• I can't add my accounts back to Authenticator using the "Security|Ways to prove who you are" web page for my account. First, I don't see my Authenticator app as a method. Second, when I try to "Add a new way to sign in or verify" and pick "Use an app", I get a dialog "Set up the Microsoft Authenticator app". I press the "Get it now" button, expecting to get the QR code to setup the TOTP for my account. But all I get is bounced out to a general account page.
• I made one more attempt to add of of my Microsoft accounts back to Authenticator by logging in from Authenticator with a password, but ended up with my password reset. Don't know if I tapped the wrong button but I'm starting to wonder if my phone or the Authenticator app was compromised somehow.

So is there an explanation for Microsoft accounts disappearing from MS Authenticator and not being able to add them back? Not just one account, but two. Is my copy of Authenticator blacklisted by MS for some reason? Sure wish they would be more informative when they suspect a security problem.

I have extra PCs and phones to experiment with but this just seems so weird.

Answer 1

You could try asking for more assistance with device account management here.
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/community?hl=en

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 2

So is there an explanation for Microsoft accounts disappearing from MS Authenticator

Sounds like they could have somehow went missing from the android device. Settings\Passwords & accounts

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 3

Well, I think I have things working again. Still no idea how my Microsoft accounts disappeared from Authenticator and I'm still concerned about how that happened. But was finally able to add my Microsoft accounts back in.

What it looks like is happening is that Microsoft is changing how Authenticator works and how they do authentication in general, but there is still documentation out there describing the old way Authenticator works. The change that is most obvious to me is the sending of "notifications" asking for the approval of login attempts. It looks similar to what Google does. For a while, I think each notification had a 6 digit (or was it 4?) number that had to match what was shown on the login screen. Now you pick from one of three numbers in the notification message to match the number on the login screen. Before notifications, you were prompted for a TOTP while logging in. I can't remember the last time I entered a TOTP for a Microsoft account.

Side question: When did Microsoft change from 6 digit TOTPs (the standard) to 8 digit? I was surprised to see 8 digit numbers when I re-added my accounts to Authenticator.

Now, when adding a Microsoft account to Authenticator, it is entirely handled from Authenticator, not by going to your account web page. Web pages such as this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/download-and-install-the-microsoft-authenticator-app-351498fc-850a-45da-b7b6-27e523b8702a describe the older method of taking a picture of a QR code to set the "seed" for the TOTP. Now, as I discovered, Authenticator takes care of all that initialization on its own if you have another authentication method already setup such as SMS with your phone.

Once I got my account added back to Authenticator, then notifications started working again.

So everything appears to be working again. Still concerned about why my Microsoft accounts were deleted from Authenticator. And changing procedures added to the confusion and made things look worse than they were.