Authentication code from the app

Question

Hi

I'm having trouble setting up an Authenticator account for my Office 365 and university accounts. I can't post this from the account experiencing the issue, but here's what's going on:

Whenever I try to set up the Authenticator, it asks for a code from the app. But since I haven't set it up yet, I can't provide the code, leaving me stuck in a catch-22. I've heard that I can get a new QR code by logging in and checking the security settings, but I can't log in without the Authenticator code, which I haven't set up yet.

I reached out to Microsoft support, and they sent me a link to help set it up, but I still can't access it without the Authentication code from the app—again, a code I don't have because the setup isn't complete.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to get around this? Should I just switch to Google Authenticator instead? The whole issue started because I changed the account password. It didn't require authentication for the password change, but now it does to update that same password on my phone. It's incredibly frustrating.

Answer 1

Dear Tatiana Gusmao,

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community.

In order to understand your query and provide possible solution, May I please double confirm if you are an end user or have admin privilege for the school account?

If you are using an end user account, I do understand your query here, but as you are using school end user account, I sincerely recommend you contact your school IT admin to reset your multifactor authentication session from their end in the Microsoft 365 admin account, to be able to add your account to your authenticator app again and sign in to your account. It's important to note that since we have limited resource and privileges as Microsoft Customer Support, we are not allowed to examine institutional end users account authentication scenario. If the accounts are educational or organization-managed, only the owner or IT staff of that school or organization has the right to manage accounts, including resetting the account multi-factor authentication, allowing account to change authentication methods and changing phone number for authentication method. Therefore, I sincerely recommend you reaching out to your school IT admin or the person who is in charge of managing Microsoft 365 admin center of the school. The admin can refer to this article, to be able to reset the multifactor authentication session of your account in the Microsoft Entra ID admin center, see Manage authentication methods for Microsoft Entra multifactor authentication - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn.

Thank you for your precious time and kind understanding. Have a nice day.

Sincerely,

Libeamlak | Microsoft Community Moderator