Why Does My Account Login Fail?

The most common reason causing a login account failure results from the retention of a legacy function still used by many web browsers—software tokens or “cookies” retained it a browser’s Web Cache and Web History,

If you’re older, you probably remember that, in the early days of the Internet, most of us used dial-up to access websites across the World Wide Web. This took time and time was often costly. Browser developers attempted to shorten this time by reconstructing and display a website based on what it looked like the last time you visited it. Updates to the site content would be made as the site sent new tokens to the browser. Hence, visitors needed to refresh their screens often while visiting a site.

Most browsers (Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, etc.) still retain, by default, software tokens exchanged from previous visits to a website in their Web Cache and Web History folders.

Why Does This Matter?

When you visit a website, most site security components send a “cookie” to your browser verifying your browser’s ability to safely access the content of that website.
If you login to your account on that website, this token includes the status of your login attempt—whether successful or not.
The next time you attempt to login to that website, your browser pulls that token from its Web Cache and Web History files and re-sends it to the website.
If your last login attempt was unsuccessful OR if the login token has expired, the website security component rejects your login attempt.

When Does This Problem Affect Me?

Usually, this issue occurs if or when you:

Logout and shortly login again.
Following an unsuccessful login attempt, you request a new account password and use that new password soon after your last failed login attempt.

How to Fix This Problem

Remove the Web Cache and Web History files from your browser using these browser-dependent procedures:

Wait up to 60 minutes before attempting to login using the new password—if you requested one. If you miss-entered your valid password, you can probably re-use it.