Old email address can't in

Question

Old email address can't in

matthew frederick 20

I used an email address (******@mydomain.com, not the one associated with this post) almost 10 years ago as an outlook account to manage an azure account.

We closed both email and azure accounts a few months later. Within the last few months, I set up gmail to use the same email address ******@mydomain.com but azure gives the error below even just trying to get support. I can't go anywhere on the website. I think it thinks I'm a new user on the account domain, but I am the same user with an identical email address.

I would be much like to be able to use mydomain to manage an azure account.

{

"sessionId": "PII",

"errors": [

{

"errorMessage": "interaction_required: AADSTS16000: User account '{EUII Hidden}' from identity provider 'live.com' does not exist in tenant 'Microsoft Services' and cannot access the application 'PII'(Microsoft_Azure_SupportPortalExtension) in that tenant. The account needs to be added as an external user in the tenant first. Sign out and sign in again with a different Azure Active Directory user account.PII",

"clientId": "PII",

"scopes": [

"PII/.default"

]

}

]

}

Rukmini 36,140 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-07T00:50:59.44+00:00
Hello matthew frederick

Based on your description, it appears that you have created a Microsoft personal account, not an Azure work or school account. This is why you’re encountering errors when trying to access the Azure Portal.

Issue: When users try to login to Azure portal using their personal Microsoft Account (Outlook, Hotmail..) they are getting AADSTS160021 or AADSTS16000 or AADSTS50020 errors.

Reason: When signing in to the Azure portal with a personal Microsoft account, you are automatically connected to the Microsoft Services tenant (Tenant ID: f8cdef31-a31e-4b4a-93e4-5f571e91255a).

You can verify this by navigating to Microsoft Entra ID > Overview, where you’ll see this Tenant ID.

This default tenant does not have a directory associated with it, which you can confirm by going to the Settings blade. As a result, you cannot perform administrative actions such as:

Creating users or groups

Registering enterprise applications

Managing resources

In short, it’s a system tenant with restricted capabilities, and administrative access is not granted by default.

Solution: To fully utilize the Azure portal, you need to create your own tenant instead of relying on the Microsoft Services tenant.

Follow these steps:

Open an in-private/incognito browser window (to avoid automatic sign-in via SSO).

Navigate to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/ to sign up for a free Azure account.

During the setup, you’ll be prompted to create a new directory (tenant). Once completed, you will become the Global Administrator of this new tenant, giving you full access to manage Azure resources.

Let me know if you need help with the sign-up process or configuring your new tenant.

If you already have an existing tenant and still unable login, please share your email address over private message which used to login into Azure Portal.

Answer accepted by question author

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Answer 1

The error indicates that the current Microsoft account for ******@mydomain.com (a personal “live.com / Microsoft account”) does not exist as a user in the “Microsoft Services” Azure AD tenant that hosts the Azure Support Portal app. In other words, the sign-in is valid as a Microsoft account, but that account is not present in the tenant that the Support Portal is trying to use.

Given the history (old Outlook/Microsoft account and Azure subscription closed years ago, then reusing the same SMTP address via Gmail), the old Microsoft account and/or Azure tenant are no longer usable. Microsoft permanently deletes inactive accounts and does not allow reusing the same Outlook.com alias on a different Microsoft account, and domains hosted in Azure have restrictions on being used as personal accounts.

Use the following checks and steps:

Confirm whether ******@mydomain.com is currently a Microsoft account
- Go to https://account.microsoft.com and enter ******@mydomain.com.
- If a password prompt appears, the address is a Microsoft account.
- If the message “We couldn't find an account with that username” or “That Microsoft account doesn't exist” appears, then there is no Microsoft account for that address and a new Microsoft account can be created for it.
If the address is not a Microsoft account
- Register a new Microsoft personal account for ******@mydomain.com at https://account.microsoft.com/account.
- After creation, sign in to the Azure portal with this new account and create a new Azure subscription. This will create a new Azure AD tenant for that account.
If the address is already a Microsoft account but cannot access Azure
- Sign out of all Microsoft accounts and clear browser site data/cookies.
- Open a private/incognito browser session and go directly to the Azure sign-up page (for example, the Azure free account sign-up) and sign in with ******@mydomain.com.
- If Azure recognizes an existing free account/credits, follow the prompt to upgrade to a pay-as-you-go subscription to reactivate access (as in the referenced resolution where the user had to go through the sign-up flow again to restore access).
If the domain is now hosted in Azure AD by an organization
- If mydomain.com is hosted in Azure AD (for example, by a company tenant), that domain generally cannot be used for a new personal Microsoft account unless it was linked before the domain was brought into Azure.
- In that case, use a different email address (for example, a pure consumer domain like outlook.com, hotmail.com, or a non-Azure-hosted domain) to create a new Microsoft account and Azure subscription.
If the old account was inactive for many years
- If the old Microsoft account tied to ******@mydomain.com was not accessed for more than 2 years, it is permanently deleted and cannot be restored, and the old Outlook.com alias cannot be reused on another Microsoft account.
- A new Microsoft account and Azure subscription must be created, using either a new alias or a different email address.

In summary, the current ******@mydomain.com identity is not a user in the “Microsoft Services” tenant, and the old Azure/Outlook identity is gone. To manage Azure again with that domain, either:

Create/confirm a Microsoft account for ******@mydomain.com (if allowed by Azure AD hosting rules) and go through the Azure sign-up flow in a clean/incognito session, or
Use a different email address to create a new Microsoft account and Azure subscription if the domain is now controlled by an Azure AD tenant.

References:

matthew frederick 20 Reputation points

2026-03-07T00:50:24.45+00:00

I am able to log into the account and even log into azure where I can navigate for about 1 second before this error message appears. It seems very similar. Sounds like recovery may not be possible?

{

"sessionId": "2ecf187c655f4d97ac8f2e4263dbe3f0",

"errors": [

{ "errorMessage": "interaction_required: AADSTS16000: User account '{EUII Hidden}' from identity provider 'live.com' does not exist in tenant 'Microsoft Services' and cannot access the application 'c44b4083-3bb0-49c1-b47d-974e53cbdf3c'(Azure Portal) in that tenant. The account needs to be added as an external user in the tenant first. Sign out and sign in again with a different Azure Active Directory user account. Trace ID: 3d0ec85d-4db4-45d5-a02d-b2eae1c8b600 Correlation ID: 1ae57019-105a-4154-8811-7203d620e41b Timestamp: 2026-03-07 00:47:01Z", "clientId": "c44b4083-3bb0-49c1-b47d-974e53cbdf3c", "scopes": [ "2086cb78-e8e8-4df3-9f9d-a03079825584/.default" ] }

]

}

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Old email address can't in

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