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.