h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Originally I had an account U226070 but now I have come back to find the new registration service in effect and I can't log back in, my password and login name I've been told is unrecognised and in an attempt to regain a new password has failed.

I've had to restart a new account but the trouble I'm facing is I can't get access to the files I've uploaded into h2g2.
Is there a way to rectify this? If only to transfer files from my closed account to the new account or to get my old account back?

Thanks for your time.

Hi Tempus Corruptus

Your user name will have been reserved for your old account so you should still be able to get back into it.

Sign Out first or, preferably, use a different browser so that you can still post with your new account if something goes wrong.

Sign In again and type in your old user ID (which may not have been the same as your h2g2 nickname) and your old Password into the boxes provided.

Good luck .

Amy

Thank you Amy, however I tried to log in but it refused my entry point blank telling me it didn't recognise anything. Could I still be able to transfer instead copies from my old account to my new account?

I still think it's best to persevere with the SSo migration by experimenting with a few userIDs. Nearly everyone who has had a problem so far has eventually figured out what they were doing wrong with the UserID.

However, if you'd prefer to keep your new ID, you can copy and paste the code from Guide Entries into new Entries and subscribe to your conversations. What you won't be able to do is to transfer your Message Centre, Journals or Edited Guide Entries.

I think it would be best if you could get back into your old space and I'm sure the editorial team will help you do this in a few days time if you really can't find your own way back in.

If I find out any more I'll post back here.

Amy

I've thought of a couple of bits of information that might help.

1) Your original User ID was set aside for U226070 so the User ID you've used for your new account *cannot* be the same as the one we're looking for, even if you thought it was. So that rules out one possibility.

2) In the new system, the User IDs and passwords are NOT case sensitive (unlike the old ones) which cuts down the number of permutations to try.

I hope that's useful.

Amy

Well I have a good idea why my old account fails to work, my original BBCi account was seemingly deleted and as I made enquiries to the Messageboard administration team, who've yet to return any explanation to me even after a week the account has fallen away leaving me locked out.

I was hoping that the administrators could have found the fault, since both accounts are linked one problem would affect the other.
Though in the meantime I will keep the 'new' account and paste other entries.

Have you actually logged into h2g2 since then or have you been reliant on the Remember Me cookie?

Reliant on the Remember Me cookie ever since and now both the password and login name fail to work whatsoever despite attempting many other usernames it doesn't work.

Well, there must be a userID associated with that account it's just a matter of finding out what it is.

If you put a wrong UserID it takes you to a screen with several sections, the third of which contains an email address. Have you tried that?

Have you ever used another computer to access your account e.g. one at work? I ask because someone else got around their login problem that way F154071?thread=329705.

No I work from home and the few times I do go out it's not near another computer. I've sent an email to the membership address, nothing as of yet from them mind you I'm not really confident it will work.

If the trouble extended from my primary BBCi account vanishing and the admininstration not responding then I'm not sure how the h2g2 account can be stabilised? I mean they're both connected and with one cut off without reason then the other was soon to follow.

An h2g2 account can't disappear - it would leave nasty holes in conversations. Your account most definitely still exists and there will therefore be a userID associated with it.

Have you tried again today? All the teething troubles seem to be over and there are fewer people trying to migrate accounts. I've just migrated three accounts with no trouble.

It appears I may have given slightly duff info above. If you don't have a cookie called BBC-UID on your machine you'll have to type the userID in by hand and that *is* still case-sensitive at that stage. So try your userID with a capital letter at the beginning to see if that makes a difference.

I tried it and once again it failed to recognise either my login name or password, once again I am at a miss to it all. The Password might be the trouble though since it was a six figure word rather than the larger seven to twenty figure.
But since that aspect of the account hasn't been changed since I joined I have no idea what could be wrong now.

I found with one of my accounts that although the first screen didn't like my userid and password number, the next screen accepted the same information without question.

Well I finally managed to get in using my old login and password but instead it opened up another brand new account for me with nothing from the original account on display.
Which only means that somehow I cannot access my original account even with the original login name, I had to get my password replaced when the system wouldn't accept it and now- a whole new account

As I said before, it means that your old login name is not what you thought it was because, if it had been, it would have been rejected as an ID for a new account and you would have been asked to choose another one.

There is no point in continuing to try that login name. You could try a similar name with different capitalisation though.

Incidentally, have you looked to see if you have a BBC-UID cookie anywhere?

Have you tried using a different browser?

I've tried a different browswer and all the 'other' possible login names and passwords and none of them work, in fact on one occasion I was almost seen as trying seemingly 'hack' into my own account- when asked for the security question I thought it had worked but nothing's happened.

And I've received no word yet from either BBCi Messageboard administration or Membership.

I think we've taken it as far as we can in this thread which is attached to rather an unusual place and so is unlikely to come to the attention of anyone who can fix your problem for you. I suggest you start a fresh thread from the hub page A1325387.

If you haven't used the hub with your current identity yet you will have to press the 'SIgn In' link again to accept the Terms and Conditions. Don't worry, you don't have to go through the whole thing again . it will recognise you.

Remember to mention the problem you had with the message boards since that seems to be significant.

Amy