Microsoft/Skype's login system -- almost 1/10th as confusing as Google's





  • I'm not following. What's confusing about this? That linked accounts exist?



  • Yes, it's really confusing when you have two "accounts" which are really just one account. I wonder if there's something in the Terms of Service that prevents them from combining the two concepts? That would be the only excuse.

    Plus, for some reason it triggers angry reactions. "I don't want to be forced to link a Microsoft account! I just want Skype!". Whereas if you combine the two without asking people generally don't care.


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    Yeah, my original "Skype Name" half of the account was compromised (it was using my Insecure-2012 password), and I've never been able to recover it because the attacker changed all of the security info on that side.
    Crazy enough, because It's associated to my MS account, it still works just fine, though I can't access the Skype-Name side at all (even if it's supposed to be the same).



  • @BaconBits said:

    I'm not following. What's confusing about this? That linked accounts exist?

    Years ago, I did some process to change my Skype account into a Microsoft account.

    Now, years later, I find out that what actually happened is that I have TWO accounts: a Microsoft account I can use to log into Skype, and a super-secret double-probation Skype account which had its password expired.

    This morning, while logging in, instead of typing my full email address like normal, I just typed in my Skype name. At which point Skype told me my account was suspended-- the very account I have logged on from another machine AT THIS VERY SECOND. Huh?

    It turns out by leaving out the @email.com part, I was logging into the ancient and mysterious super-secret Skype account I had no idea even existed anymore.

    Had I known that, I could have skipped the password reset process and just gone back to the login screen and ensured @email.com was there. But I didn't know what was going on-- I thought my Skype had been hacked for awhile until I figured all this shit out.

    A naive user, like my dad, would have been completely mystified beyond belief.


    A lot of this could have just been solved by some messaging. Instead of, "your account is suspended", how about, "this login is expired-- do you normally log in with a Microsoft account?" would have given me the clue I needed.

    Now that I know what's going on, in retrospect, I'd have preferred to keep the super-secret Skype account in the "password expired" state and ignore it. Oh well, now it has a shiny new password.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    Yes, it's really confusing when you have two "accounts" which are really just one account.

    So confusing that you, as a technical professional, would feel the need to rant about it? For two companies and two services that you know merged?

    Come on.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Now, years later, I find out that what actually happened is that I have TWO accounts: a Microsoft account I can use to log into Skype, and a super-secret double-probation Skype account which had its password expired.

    So what you're saying is that Microsoft integrated with Skype so well that for six years you couldn't even tell that there were two accounts in the background because it all worked so seamlessly?

    Yeah, I'm still filing this under "not a WTF".



  • @BaconBits said:

    So what you're saying is that Microsoft integrated with Skype so well that for six years you couldn't even tell that there were two accounts in the background because it all worked so seamlessly?

    Correct.

    If it had happened after just a couple months, it probably would not have surprised me as much.


  • FoxDev

    @BaconBits said:

    it all worked so seamlessly

    If it all worked so seamlessly, it wouldn't be possible to accidentally log into the Skype account instead of the MS account



  • Don't quote out of context. I said it worked seamlessly for six years.



  • Skype mostly only worked before Microsoft bought it. Then it went downhill.



  • @BaconBits said:

    So what you're saying is that Microsoft integrated with Skype so well that for six years you couldn't even tell that there were two accounts in the background because it all worked so seamlessly?

    Yeah, I'm still filing this under "not a WTF".

    Just because something looks fine on the outside doesn't mean it's not full of WTFs on the inside. For example, six years after merging they still have a dual account system that's mostly transparent until some small change in the user's behavior (like forgetting to add the email domain) triggers an odd response. For example, the system telling you that the account you're logged into is also suspended.

    Also, I don't see why a technical user should rant less about problems than less knowledgeable users. The fact that I work in technology doesn't excuse their shoddy design.


  • FoxDev

    @BaconBits said:

    Don't quote out of context. I said it worked seamlessly for six years.

    And if it was truly seamless, it wouldn't have broken.



  • @Bulb said:

    Skype mostly only worked before Microsoft bought it. Then it went downhill.

    ? The first thing Microsoft did was put all the "command" servers (or whatever Skype called them) in their own cloud, making the most common reason for Skype going down stop instantly.

    It's been stable as a rock since Microsoft bought them out.

    I'm not sure what about Skype you think has been "going downhill". But the "working" bit is definitely better now.


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said:

    But the "working" bit is definitely better now.

    Aside from a recent update fucking up the message order; there's a Sidebar thread about it IIRC



  • Oh right. I actually saw that once or twice myself.

    But still, at least the era of 24-hour-long outages is over.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    But still, at least the era of 24-hour-long outages is over.

    Yes, creating stable command servers helped. But incidence of failing to connect someone to call, clients crashing when they receive a call, people not hearingΒΉ and similar is still rather large.


    ΒΉ Actually we found the most common cause of people not hearing: until the person dialing the call says something, nobody hears anything. Well, because it is also important that the person making the call has decent connection, it is common to ask somebody else to dial it if you want a larger group, but have slow connection. And then if the person dialing forgets to say something (or worse, mutes their mic), it does not work.



  • Oh yeah that's their "special" audio compression, they put that in somewhat before Microsoft bought them. It's very annoying. Ruined a lot of Robots in the News episodes until we started using Vent for it.



  • @BaconBits said:

    So confusing that you, as a technical professional, would feel the need to rant about it? For two companies and two services that you know merged?

    They merged over 4 years ago, and IIRC they had a migration process which was successfully completed.

    Yes, it's a WTF to have two accounts with independent passwords that both access the same thing, controlled by the same company.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    Whereas if you combine the two without asking people generally don't care.

    Actually, I think this is the primary reason people hate Google+.



  • Google+ was taking one login and turning it into 4. It's pretty much the exact opposite.



  • Huh? How? It's part of your Google account like Google Drive and Google Docs and YouTube. I only have one login.



  • If back in the day you created a Microsoft account (was probably called Live or Passport or something) using a non-Microsoft/Outlook/Hotmail email address there's a chance it wasn't migrated properly and most of Microsoft's own services won't work properly if you log into Windows with it. Mail app, People app, Store app, (Groove?) Music app - all dead.

    Similarly, trying to install the Google Inbox app if you created your Google account with your own email address rather than a gMail address shows an insulting picture of spilt milk with an unhelpful error message as usual.

    Accounts are hard, and get harder when used cross-site. I find it hard to trust sites using third party login



  • @LB_ said:

    Huh? How?

    I had a Gmail, and a YouTube, then I suddenly had a Gmail, YouTube, and Google+ and also another YouTube associated with the Google+ somehow.

    So while Microsoft with Skype halved my number of accounts, Google with Google+ doubled it. As far as I can tell, I gained absolutely no benefit from this.


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    @nexekho said:

    insulting picture of spilt milk

    Now I really need to see that.
    How in the world could spilt milk be insulting?

    .... Wait, don't answer that. It's not the milk that's insulting, it's the insinuation that the milk is providing that's insulting...



  • @LB_ said:

    Actually, I think this is the primary reason people hate Google+.

    I think it was their attempt to force people to use their real name everywhere that turned people against merging the accounts. Not so much that the accounts would be merged.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I had a Gmail, and a YouTube, then I suddenly had a Gmail, YouTube, and Google+ and also another YouTube associated with the Google+ somehow.

    So while Microsoft with Skype halved my number of accounts, Google with Google+ doubled it. As far as I can tell, I gained absolutely no benefit from this.

    I don't think we share the same definition of "account". From my perspective, you have one Google account, one Microsoft account, and one Skype account linked to your Microsoft account. Everything else you listed is just part of your Google account.

    @Kian said:

    I think it was their attempt to force people to use their real name everywhere that turned people against merging the accounts. Not so much that the accounts would be merged.

    That never happened to me, one day I just got a thing that said "what name do you want to use on YouTube?" and I just said "LB" and it set everything up correctly for me. Every time I try to ask someone what happened to them or what they saw, they can't explain it. What happened to you? What did you see?


    I'm not saying Google+ is great, I just think it's stupid that people hate it only because it's popular to hate.



  • @LB_ said:

    I'm not saying Google+ is great, I just think it's stupid that people hate it only because it's popular to hate.

    I have very good reasons to hate it.

    For example, it did that bullshit I mentioned above to me "automatically" without my ability to decline. Well, now I know new YouTube users don't have to have a Google+, because Google finally stopped being dickholes. So now the question is: how do I detach my Google+ from my YouTube and Gmail so I can delete it and go back to how things were when I was happy with Google services?

    And the answer seems to be: you can't. Fuck you.



  • Do you often comment on videos in youtube? Unless you commented, it wouldn't affect you. But here are a couple links from a quick search:

    I don't comment on youtube, so it didn't affect me.



  • True, people seemed to make a big deal that it was a "different product" they weren't interested in, as if google wasn't adding services to their accounts all the time.

    However joining Google+ actually had consequences:

    • Your profile (name and picture) became public and people could search them from your email
    • Your YouTube comments switched from an alias to your public G+ profile. But you also had your old YouTube profile. It was confusing.
    • You had to have your real name and they could cancel your account if you had a fake one.

    Most people didn't want that so the whole experience was frustrating. It could all have been replaced by making Google+ available to everyone by default, an optional public profile (but don't call it the "Google+ profile", just your public profile), and a checkbox saying whether you wanted your public content associated with your real name or a pseudonym.

    Even now, after they backed down a bit, you still have to create a "channel" to stay anonymous on YouTube.



  • They killed Google+ for NEW USERS, but existing users who had Google+ forced on them against their will are still fucked.

    @anonymous234 said:

    You had to have your real name and they could cancel your account if you had a fake one.

    This one was REALLY nasty, because you could have been using an anonymous Gmail account for almost a DECADE and then Google FORCES you to put your real name on it on penalty of losing it forever.

    Fuck Google. I'd say "how did they not see the problem with that?" but this is the aspie company that decided it'd be a good idea to introduce Google Buzz. NO HUMAN BEINGS WORK AT GOOGLE.

    They lost my support that day. I only use them now because they're a fucking monopoly and I don't have a practical choice.



  • You could always use Bing and Hotmail. And, uh, vimeo? I don't know about video hosting.

    @blakeyrat said:

    NO HUMAN BEINGS WORK AT GOOGLE.

    I know someone who worked at google. He's a very convincing robot.



  • I guess somehow I missed out on all the commotion, I haven't experienced any of the things everyone is complaining about.

    @anonymous234 said:

    Your YouTube comments switched from an alias to your public G+ profile. But you also had your old YouTube profile. It was confusing.

    As I mentioned, it let me pick an alias from day one. What it basically did was make me (Nicholas Braden) a manager of the LB page and channel, and there is no way to see who manages a page or channel unless you are a manager. So technically I could have kept my anonymity if I wanted by just never telling anyone that Nicholas Braden and LB were the same person.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @LB_ said:

    Nicholas Braden and LB were the same person.

    I was wondering about that... Um, I mean, no I didn't totally stalk you a few months ago...




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  • BINNED

    @Tsaukpaetra said:

    my original "Skype Name" half of the account was compromised

    @Tsaukpaetra said:

    Crazy enough, because It's associated to my MS account, it still works just fine, though I can't access the Skype-Name side at all

    That was funny πŸ˜† this should be an article. :wtf: so you are Ok to have a parasitic coexistence with a hacker.



  • @Bulb said:

    But incidence of failing to connect someone to call, clients crashing when they receive a call, people not hearingΒΉ and similar is still rather large.

    We recently switched from Skype to Zoom for interoffice communication because of the terrible video and audio quality. It seems to be much better, even if the UI isn't as easy to use.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    And the answer seems to be: you can't. Fuck you.

    Doesn't it strike you as odd that some things that everyone finds easy to do are impossible for you?



  • I seem to have missed this problem completely as I don't recall migrating my Skype login to MS account and I still login with just my Skype username and password.



  • @Zemm said:

    We recently switched from Skype to Zoom for interoffice communication because of the terrible video and audio quality. It seems to be much better, even if the UI isn't as easy to use.

    I don't want yet another walled garden. I would consider SIP/SIMPLE or XMPP/Jingle. However I like the way Skype synchronizes history to all clients though. It only does as the peers connect, but that's still better than any other system I've seen.



  • That's great, but it only deletes Google+ "features", it still doesn't give me a SEPARATE YouTube and Gmail login like I had before this Google+ disaster started in the first place. So it doesn't fucking do what I fucking want you condescending piece of shit.

    Look, I just want my Google accounts back to the way they were before Google forced that shit Google+ bullshit IN THE FIRST PLACE. I just want a giant "unfuck me" button. Because they fucked me over, and I can't unfuck myself now.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @dse said:

    parasitic coexistence with a hacker.

    Well it was a bot. Just spammed the three contacts I have (including the "Skype Call Test Service" user) twice and left forevermore.
    I hadn't even noticed for almost two years, because the silly sods didn't respond to the message at all and obviously I was using the MS Account side, so I consider it more like, "Hacker-bot pwned the account, forgot about it, and now I have a side-door with a deadbolt welded shut from both sides."



  • [quote="blakeyrat, post:41, topic:54534, full:true"]
    That's great, but it only deletes Google+ "features", it still doesn't give me a SEPARATE YouTube and Gmail login like I had before this Google+ disaster started in the first place. So it doesn't fucking do what I fucking want you condescending piece of shit.
    [quote]
    Maybe it doesn't do what you want, but it does what you asked for, which is what I replied to. Like many people here, I can't read your mind, so I have to go by what you write...

    If you want two separate logins, it's even easier: open two separate accounts.


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