2FA Activation Workflow Loop
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roguescholar last edited by
I've been unable to activate two-factor authentication on my Opera account for going on five months now (though in light of how many active threads there are on the forum about breakdowns in that system, that's starting to feel like a blessing). This problem is identical across operating systems (I use Windows 11 and Kubuntu Linux on my personal computers roughly 50/50) and browsers (ironic, but I tried activating 2FA on my Opera account using both Google Chrome Beta and Mozilla Firefox Beta, both with temporary profiles with no extensions or non-default settings to eliminate localized errors). The pattern follows this basic rubric:
- Click Activate in the 2FA card of my Opera Profile page, after having logged in
- Click Start button on the modal window that appears overlaid on the page
- Enter account password when prompted to confirm identity
- When presented with QR code and raw text value of the TOTP seed, record it in FOUR (4) known good TOTP managers, to eliminate issues that may be present in a specific implementation of TOTP; the managers are: Twilio Authy Android app v24.14.5, Microsoft Authenticator Android app v6.2404.2301, 1Password for Windows 8.10.30 (build 013) and the totp-cli tool written in Golang v1.8.7. TOTP credentials successfully registered with each manager and all produce identical TOTP values
- Click the Continue button to validate that I can generate valid codes
- Loop back to step 3 through one of two paths:
- Get looped directly back to the account password validation modal by clicking on the Continue button, or
- Get presented with the code validation modal with six single-digit input fields, quickly confirm that all managers agree on currently valid value, input it, double-check correct input and click the Confirm button, only to get taken directly back to the account password modal
As you can see, I've gone to great lengths to eliminate any possible contamination on my side on the experience, testing multiple HTML and JS rendering engines, operating systems, TOTP code generators, only to experience the exact same result. Oh yeah, I ever tried the process from my Android smartphone with Wi-Fi turned off to eliminate the possibility that my home internet or network devices weren't correctly some resource URI required by the backend you're using.
Please advise on how to break through this infernal workflow breakdown.
