Internationally defined as Layer 8 in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.
You mentioned that you have a recovery phone number (your ex), but did you also have a recovery email address? Might be another avenue to try.
Yes!
But… in a fit of efficiency, I set it up so that all mail sent to that recovery address is redirected to my gmail address.
I did not even once consider this unwise… until I recently got a lesson from the mail redirecting protocol, contained in RFC 5322.
So my options are:
Enter password - fail
Enter passphrase - fail, never setup
Enter phone number - fail, message never arrives
Enter alt email - fail, message gets sent back to sender
And, slightly weird,
Ask to send recovery email to the very account out of which I am locked.
The thing with a hope of success is to try to schedule some time with my ex, and send the recovery message to her, she send it to me. But frustratingly, while that gets me a step further in the process, that next step is asking for my password, the thing I can’t recall.
I should probably just find a 16 year old, though they are probably too cool for gmail these days.
How did you set up the redirection of the recovery email address? Can you reverse that? Was this using a forwarding setting in another email service or from setting email routing with a domain registrar?
In another step of the comedy of errors… at the recovery address ISP level, ie, a wildcard for all mail at this address goes to gmail.
But, I am fairly sure that ISP has suspended my account because I have not paid them, so they won’t be doing any redirecting at all. If I was not suspended I could possubly logon to their webmail admin and read the mails, but I need to pay to reactivate, and I am broke. Plus, guess where I get the username/password/url combo from on the rare occasion I need it? Yes, the welcome mail, inside gmail.
Also, to add injury, they will only communicate with the technical contact for the domain. The technical contact email gets redirected to gmail, where I cannot read it.
Maybe there is a way to contact the ISP, convince them I am me, send them payment for arrears and have the account reactivated, so at the very least I could deactivate the redirect.
I will try to phone them.
Do you own the domain? If so, who is the domain registrar? If it is not the same as the ISP who is hosting your recovery email, the MX records for the domain should point to the ISP. You should be able to change the MX records to point to a different email server.
For example, my domain is hosted by GoDaddy. The MX records for my domain point to Gmail, which is my email provider. I can change where my email is hosted just by accessing my GoDaddy domain management.
This assumes that your domain registration is current (I.e., paid up).
This is a clever suggestion, but the MX record is held by the ISP who holds the A record.
But.. I wonder if I could, with some copius explanation, convince them to reactivate just the MX, and ideally remove the redirect rule, or change the forwarding address to an account I do control.
Hmm. Good idea.
Is there anything unusual about your phone number or provider, such as it being a VOIP number (like google voice)? Sometimes systems have trouble sending messages to numbers which are not true cell numbers.You could contact your phone provider and see if they can figure out what is happening. They might be able to tell you if the gmail text is getting into their system or not by looking at the logs. Your account may also have that information. Some phone providers allow you to see the call/text history on the website for your account. Contacting google support may also help (although I’m not sure how to do that). Perhaps your number is blocked or something on their end. If you have any spam services on your phone, disable them and see if the message can get through.
VOIP is not really a thing here in South Africa. It exists, but we’re still on copper cables for the most part.
I do, and I did. Still no message.
As for access to logs etc… we are lucky to have service at all, let alone adequate service!
If it’s a SA number, perhaps there’s an issue between the gmail server and the SA texting system. When gmail sends the details to your phone, can you see that the phone number is your actual phone number along with the country code? You said your ex was able to get the code. Is there anything different about her phone, phone number, or service versus yours? Any underlying reason why the code might get to her phone but not yours?
She uses a different provider, so possibly. Not that I can overcome that problem.
Gmail doesnt want to send me anything; I’ll ask the ex.
The easiest will be just to meet up, have some wine to mellow us, have the kids nearby to make sure we don’t argue too much*, and spend a delightful non-romantic time trying to get the bloody code to work.
* we very, very rarely argued in front of the kids, even during peak divorce.
One thing I’m not quite understanding is why when you enter the code from your ex, that gmail then asks for the password. That seems like a broken process. I’m not seeing how that will allow you to get access to the account. That seems more like a process to get past a locked account where you have to prove you are you because there have been too many failed logins and gmail locked the account. Give it a try, but it might just end up being a nice time drinking with your ex.