The Virgin and Google account shambles - The Bear and Badger

davyK

Anyone here with a virginmedia email account?

It seems google have changed how logins are done and for my account (I use my virgin email account for login) it redirects to the virgin website for login but it gets bounced.

There's a hilarious "fix" for this on the virgin site - it asks you first to log into your google account. I CAN'T FUCKING LOG INTO IT - THAT's THE PROBLEM.

Fuck me.

There must be people with content etc on youtube who cannot now access their youtube account because of this. There was a workaround on the virgin forum by a customer but it doesn't work for me.

Anyone know what is is going on?

Lord_Griff

I have some idea.

davyK

I've actually given up and just created a new account - but if I had a pile of content in the account I would be seriously pissed off. It's bad enough having to remember all my youtube subs. And if google think I'll be using their email they can fuck off.

AJ

TBF, what you described sounds like it could well be Virgin's fuck up.

davyK

It is. But then why are google introducing the change and making it happen in the first place? It's probably a move to force people to create a gmail account. So mission accomplished.

AJ

Only reason I can think of (other then it actually being nothing to do with Google, which I still consider likely; Virgin are known to fuck with their DNS) is to increase the security of your account. I very much doubt they're actually that bothered if you have a Gmail account.

davyK

Maybe. Relying on someone else to authenticate though after all that time is a bit rum. And Virgin are being churlish by not providing a working interface.

Caught between the two.

AJ

I've actually been considering moving all my account logins to an address on my own domain in case anyone decides to play silly buggers like that.

acemuzzy

I've got some acemuzzy.com addresses going spare if anyone needs one! (I'm muzz@, obviously.)

davyK

I actually have my own domain and hardly use it. I suppose I really should make the jump. Thing is - it means paypal, amazon, eBay etc. Pain in the bum.

IanHamlett

Where's cockbeard? Shouldn't he know about this? Did we sickbants him to death? That would be a shame.

Elmlea

I don't even understand what the issue is here. You have a Virgin email address, but you need to sign in to Google to use it? Or you use a Virgin email address in order to sign in to your Google account, and that doesn't work?

I thought everyone had stopped using ISP-tied email addresses anyway?

davyK

You can't use an email address supplied by virgin to log into google services now. So your youtube account is fucked basically.

Youtube/ google redirects to virgin with your login credentials. I'm guessing virgin is supposed to return an authentication token but it doesn't. The blame lies at both ends probably but anyone with any serious content is knackered.

There is a virgin help page on the subject - even has videos. It starts off by telling you to log into your google account and then do some config. But the problem is you can't log into your google account - it is ludicrous.

I've used the same email for 15 years - is an old ntlworld domain name taken over by Virgin some time ago. I use it for lots of things. I have an old rocketmail account (taken over by yahoo years ago) that I use for junk website registrations, and I have my own domain (davykelly.com) but I still use my ntlworld/virgin account as my main account.

AJ

On the off-chance, have you tried using a different DNS?

stonechalice

I know what this is. Virgin have ceased any non fibre optic services and handed that side of the business over to Talk Talk. This includes anyone who has email addresses from back in the day when they were 'NTL World' or whatever.

Happened to my dad. He's had to change to gmail or similar. I think he was given a months notice or something. Did you not get anything from them?

ChopperByrne

The redirect has to be a virgin dns issue.

Change your primary dns and see what happens. The sign in using your virgin account is just Google letting you use your own credentials, but should be in no way connected to your actual virgin account. The same way you can use any email you want for a Microsoft account, but the passwords can and should be completely different.

Elmlea

I use my gmail address to sign into my Microsoft account, which is pretty much just there for XBL stuff.

Sometimes, if I sign into it on a browser, it takes me to a Microsoft/Live/Outlook.com style inbox, as if it were a Microsoft email address. There's no mail in it, obviously, but it implies there could be. I wonder how you send mail there?

davyK

The URL has "identity2" in it which is different from the main virgin login screen but I get an error message. To be honest I'll just adopt using a gmail account for google services. Makes the demarkation clean.

I got no notice of this at all from anyone - google or virgin.

I would have been seriously pissed if I had made a pile of youtube content for example. But I haven't so it's just been a case of re-subbing to some channels.

I did post a couple of atari 7800 videos on my old account but it's no big deal.

Roujin

Chalice is pretty much correct, same thing happened to my folks who have using their old ass email address from Blue Yonder, before NTL, before Virgin.

AJ

That shouldn't affect the Google login, though, adding credence to it all being Virgin fucking about.

Also, people for whom their Google account is important would normally have added a second (sometimes even third) way to access the account. I can get into mine with two different email addresses and my mobile number.

davyK

I can still have notifications etc. posted to my ntlworld address so it's been a minor inconvenience for me. Virgin's handling of it is the main source of irritation.

cockbeard

IanHamlett wrote:

Where's cockbeard? Shouldn't he know about this? Did we sickbants him to death? That would be a shame.

Still here, went self employed been mad busy. I don't have an inside line on this yet but I'll ask a few buddies. Having used both firms for a long time, it sounds like virgin are trying to migrate their email addresses away, or that google see some security issue with them and won't allow them to be used as a primary address

Similar issue years back when BT got into bed with Yahoo, and had Yahoo manage all the @btbroadband addresses, which was fine, after all Yahoo do know a lot more than BT about email and webhosting, however when these relationships go south, such a ballache

I once had an ntlworld account, I could never remember it and it disappeared when I left virgin between addresses, so no I'd never use an ISP address again either. It does sound like quite a bit of wankery for you though, if I hear any more then I'll pop over and share it, but I didn't work that side so it's unlikely

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