Forum Discussion
Solved
Suddenly cannot login to MS Teams desktop app -- stuck in infinite login loop
I have been using MS Teams (desktop app) for years on my PC at work with no issues. Today when I opened the app, I wasn't signed in automatically. Instead it asked me to select an org. I selected...
I was finally able to resolve this, although I'm not sure what exactly I did that worked.
I realized that somehow I have TWO Microsoft accounts under the same email address (how Microsoft could allow this, I have no idea). In Windows settings, I clicked on Account > Email & accounts. I saw both accounts listed there - one said "Work or school account" and one said "Personal account created by you" or something like that. The "personal account" is the one that I use to sign in to Teams, but I suspect Teams was trying to use the "Work or school account."
So I clicked the option to remove / sign out of the "personal" account, and then for the "Work or school account" I clicked Manage as there was no option to remove it. That opened up a page in my browser where I signed in to this other "bad" Microsoft account.
It was at this point I realized that this "bad" account somehow was created when I purchased an Office365 subscription earlier this year (rather than my existing account being used). Again, I have no idea how this could have happened or how to combine the two accounts...but that's a different issue.
Anyway, once logged in here, I clicked the "Sign out of everything everywhere" option and then waited an hour or so.
I tried logging into Teams, and after some weirdness like being asked for my email address twice, being told my password was incorrect, but then accepting it on a re-try (no I didn't typo it), finally...IT WORKED!
I'm not sure if deleting the account from my computer or signing out from the web portal was what did it, or some combination thereof, but hopefully this helps anyone else who might encounter this nightmare.
I was finally able to resolve this, although I'm not sure what exactly I did that worked.
I realized that somehow I have TWO Microsoft accounts under the same email address (how Microsoft could allow this, I have no idea). In Windows settings, I clicked on Account > Email & accounts. I saw both accounts listed there - one said "Work or school account" and one said "Personal account created by you" or something like that. The "personal account" is the one that I use to sign in to Teams, but I suspect Teams was trying to use the "Work or school account."
So I clicked the option to remove / sign out of the "personal" account, and then for the "Work or school account" I clicked Manage as there was no option to remove it. That opened up a page in my browser where I signed in to this other "bad" Microsoft account.
It was at this point I realized that this "bad" account somehow was created when I purchased an Office365 subscription earlier this year (rather than my existing account being used). Again, I have no idea how this could have happened or how to combine the two accounts...but that's a different issue.
Anyway, once logged in here, I clicked the "Sign out of everything everywhere" option and then waited an hour or so.
I tried logging into Teams, and after some weirdness like being asked for my email address twice, being told my password was incorrect, but then accepting it on a re-try (no I didn't typo it), finally...IT WORKED!
I'm not sure if deleting the account from my computer or signing out from the web portal was what did it, or some combination thereof, but hopefully this helps anyone else who might encounter this nightmare.
I suspect that many people will have the same "login loop" problem with Microsoft Teams for Windows desktop as I did (using the free version without a license), so I'll take the liberty of describing a solution here:
I just graduated from university and no longer have access to the Office 365 account the institution provided to us.
However, this university account data was still stored in the Windows settings and became the default login for the Teams desktop client once I started the application (I don't use any other Microsoft account on this system). This, I found, is the cause for my login loop problem.
Of course, I could no longer use my password to log into the university account in the Teams desktop client as this account is no longer active.
Then I thought I'd click "Use another account or sign up", then "No account? Create one!" as you can't use Teams without a Microsoft account anyway.
But, even though I was able to create a new account using a private e-mail address and could verify it with the security code e-mail from Microsoft, I was then stuck in a perpetual login loop:
When I tried to login in the Teams desktop client with the newly created account, I got the error message:
"This Microsoft account doesn't exist. Enter a different account or get a new one."
When I clicked on "get a new one" and entered the e-mail address for the account I had just created (which supposedly didn't exist), I got the contradictory error message:
"[E-mail address] is already a Microsoft account. Please try a different email address."
So I could login neither with the inactive university account nor with the newly created account.
The solution I found was: you simply have to delete the inactive account from the Windows settings (we're talking Windows 10 or 11 here). The thing is, in the Windows settings, you *can't* use the "Accounts" -> "Email and accounts" menu as there will be no "Remove" option for the inactive account (which happens to be a "Work or school account"). Also, you can't use the "Manage" option as you can't log into an inactive account.
Instead, use the Windows settings menu "Accounts" -> "Access work or school". From there, select the inactive account and click "Disconnect". This will delete the account from your system (once you've rebooted, it will also be gone from the Microsoft Edge profiles and anywhere else, in case you're wondering).
Once you did that, you should be able to log into your newly created account in the Teams desktop client. No more login loop or contradictory error messages! And you won't have to resort to the less reliable Teams web client (which at least doesn't have the login loop problem, though). Hope this helps some of you out there!
