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Tecknowhelp's avatar
Tecknowhelp
Valued Contributor II
9 years ago
Solved

Lost forum access with IDM change?

First, this may sound like a billing issue, but that is not the point of this thread. I recently lost access to this username for this forum. Would give me a "Invalid Password" error on attempt. I could sign into Cox.com and webmail.cox.net with the username but the redirect to idm.east.cox.net for forum sign-in would fail. I tried resetting my password through the Identity and Preferences option under My Account but that did not fix the problem. The new password worked in all the same ways the old password did and didn't. I cleared all cookies and temp files using CCleaner and tried multiple browsers and multiple devices to no effect.

This problem happened at the same time my gmail email got a notification from COXCOM.SERVICE@cox.com saying;

"This is a courtesy notification to you that the following information for your Cox Communications account was changed through our online system:*A change occurred to the email address you have selected for these notifications."

It turns out that when a authorized user on my account called up to add a service to the account, the agent asked to update the email address tied to the account. I am fine with the service change, and even the change to the email notification, what caused me grief was I thought it had deleted my forum username. Most Tier 1 agents don't even know Cox has a forum, so I knew calling up was useless. This caused a lot of stress and finger pointing in the house that led me to have a bad day today.  

After about 24 hours, everything went back to normal. With no change by me or Cox. So my guess is the little client that pushes the data change from the customer database to the billing database is broken for some and any change is breaking forum access until the provisioning reconnects. I know the request to update the billing email is procedure, so I thought it important for some to know (both Cox and user) that this is small risk when making those types of changes. Its the whole "if it ain't broke" rule.

  • Hi Tecknowhelp,

    I certainly understand how discombobulating this must have been, and I truly apologize that we caused stress and grief in your household yesterday. I'm glad to hear that things have calmed down now!

    You are the first report an issue with a Forum ID after changing the account email address, and on first glance, there isn't an obvious connection. However, since our systems are tied together in strange and mysterious ways, we agree this warrants further investigation. We've forwarded your post to our head honchos. If said honchos have need more details or have any questions, we'll let you know. Thanks very much for letting us know about this!

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  • Hi Tecknowhelp,

    I certainly understand how discombobulating this must have been, and I truly apologize that we caused stress and grief in your household yesterday. I'm glad to hear that things have calmed down now!

    You are the first report an issue with a Forum ID after changing the account email address, and on first glance, there isn't an obvious connection. However, since our systems are tied together in strange and mysterious ways, we agree this warrants further investigation. We've forwarded your post to our head honchos. If said honchos have need more details or have any questions, we'll let you know. Thanks very much for letting us know about this!

  • Tecknowhelp's avatar
    Tecknowhelp
    Valued Contributor II

    Yea, I agree its weird and I don't fully understand it myself. I just didn't want to give TOO much detail on why it doesn't make sense, but for some reason happened. If it was just a weird glitch with my account, it's not a big deal. I am  just happy it's not gone. I thought might be the combo of the pending phone install, me having two forum usernames, or where my IDM account was transferred from. I could see these being a rare set if circumstances now though.

    On the bright side I am going to be beta testing the new 16+ channel non gateway eMTA. Thats what the service change was, adding phone service. I will post a thread when/if I am allowed to with pictures and stats.