Like many people, I had my Apple ID locked last night, and it was a big hassle trying to get it unlocked and working again.
One tip - when you go through all the rigmarole to get it going again, one thing that doesn't switch on by default is receiving iMessages or FaceTime calls via your Apple ID. So, like me, you will probably be missing messages until you reenable those in Settings. Also, if you send somebody a new iMessage it will default to your phone number which may not be what you want.
@scottearle @jamesthomson What happened to me is almost exactly 7:30PM New York time, my iPad got a message that a new Mac had been added to my trusted iCloud devices.
It was my Mom's MacBook Air that I had used briefly with my own (local) account in last August when she first got it.
One wonders if something went horribly wrong and they had to revert to an old AppleID backup?
@gedeonm @jamesthomson for me I did not change password at all (somewhere in settings it shows I changed it in 2019, which might be interesting if people have older passwords than that).
But I did have to re-log-in in many apps on Mac. Music, AppStore, GameCenter Only once relogin on iOS.
@gedeonm @jamesthomson On modern MacOS Sonoma, the iCloud login is clearly a jenga tower and it's not clear what's at the bottom but it is either App Store app or Music app (and I guess both for various tasks)
Books, Podcasts, TV seem to rely on one or the other (prolly Music) to operate the credentials.
@paulc @jamesthomson Speculation founded on my ongoing iCloud issues and experiences trying to resolve those. Apple is continually making tweaks on the back end as it roles out new Betas and official releases. From what I’ve been able to learn from dealing with Apple Support so much depends on which servers things are pointing to.
Apple thinks they’ve resolved issues but then discover they haven’t when the earlier problems resurface again. /1
@paulc @jamesthomson As to this issue I don’t think it has to do with being acttively online or not as I’m seeing folks waking up to this issue. I think it’s more related to how Apple assigns AppleIDs and how they relate to back end server locations.
Here’s a link to an article I’ve writen about this that contains links to my journey’s through Apple Support on my similar issues.
https://warnercrocker.com/2023/10/05/time-for-apple-to-come-clean-about-icloud/
@jamesthomson I got 5 active Apple ID-connected devices. Neither one were acting up yesterday, nor today. Since I’m in a different region it’s likely a regional roll-out, one they will probably pause while they correct their mass-reconfiguration deployment.
Unless there was an account breach incident (such as brute-force attempts) for X percent of users and Apple made an emergency password reset for affected accounts.
@jamesthomson Wait, it seems to be related to ”Stolen device protection” specifically. I don’t have it enabled in my account, so I’m 99 % sure I won’t be affected: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/04/26/janky-apple-id-security/
I do use two-factor auth and I don’t use the Apple ID for e-mail or signups other than Sign in with Apple sometimes, so it’s barely known to companies and people outside of Apple, bare any exception I may have forgotten about since it’s an old .mac account ☺️
@jamesthomson my Apple ID was locked too. Wondered what was going on and called Apple Support. They couldn't see any details in their system, so this leaves a rather sour taste…
Maybe a bug in their system which recognises suspicious behaviour…
And oh boy, what a hassle if one has far too many apple devices.
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