Can't login, 2FA code not received

I apologize if the post sounds “cranky”. This is very frustrating.

After attempting to sign in, the Login page said:
For added security, you'll need to verify your identity. We've sent a verification code to t.************@g****.com

There’s quite a bit masked out there, but the two letters of the local part are correct.

But, I don’t receive the verification code even after multiple attempts so have it resent. There is nothing in the Spam folder, and I even set a Gmail filter: Matches: from:(*@gitlab.com) Do this: Never send it to Spam

The Login page says:

If you’ve lost access to the email associated to this account or having trouble with the code, here are some other steps you can take.

That is linked to Support | GitLab which is all about product support and makes no mention whatsoever of verification code issues.

That page says:

GitLab Free plan

GitLab Free plan (GitLab.com or Self-managed) does not include support at any level. Instead, you can open a thread in the GitLab Community Forum. GitLab Community Forum

GitLab doesn’t provide support for issues related to logging in to its website??

Searching the Docs for “verification code” yields Account email verification | GitLab, which says:

Account email verification provides an additional layer of GitLab account security. When certain conditions are met, an account is locked. If your account is locked, you must verify your identity or reset your password to sign in to GitLab.

On GitLab.com, if you don’t receive a verification email, select Resend Code before you contact the support team.

How would one contact “the support team”? There is no link provided. Are they on the GitLab Community Forum? Where?

I initiated resetting my password and got the message:

If your email address exists in our database, you will receive a password recovery link at your email address in a few minutes.

I waited hours; no password recovery link came in.

I also tried signing in with Google. I got:

Sign-in using Google auth failed
Email has already been taken
If you are unable to sign in or recover your password, contact a GitLab administrator.

Well of course the Email has already been taken. I “took” it when I registered the account. “… contact a GitLab administrator”? How??

So, maybe Gmail doesn’t like me. I’ll try a different email address using the “update email” link. Wait, and wait … and wait. Nope, GitLab doesn’t like me.

How might I get this issue corrected?

So, even the GitLab Team is unable to help.

Nobody on the forum can help you because we don’t have admin capabilities at gitlab.com - they managed their instance. There are already hundreds of posts on this forum already about 2FA, either for codes not received or unable to reset it.

So, either you will be lucky and a member of Gitlab will see your post, or you won’t. Their ticketing system now requires registration: Sign in to GitLab Support

Previously you were able to choose account issues, and write a ticket, but I expect even if you register, and you don’t have a subscription (free user), then you will not get any support from there either.

So yeah, no chance unless someone from Gitlab visits the forum and sees this post. I believe there have been plenty of issues with accounts using gmail and email delivery problems which I’ve already reported to Gitlab but nothing has been done about it obviously. I don’t use email for 2FA, I set it up to use authenticator applications as well as my yubikey. But then I don’t use gitlab.com for much, I run my own server.

Since Gitlab also don’t do resets for 2FA, if you did upload an SSH key to your account, then you can try regenerating 2FA codes to get back in: Troubleshooting two-factor authentication | GitLab

if you didn’t upload an SSH key to your account, then that won’t work, and then you pretty much have no other options than wait and maybe you will be lucky someone from Gitlab sees this post.

Thank you very much for your response and the info, @iwalker.

I didn’t find any link to GitLab Support before (or I thought it was for paid customers only). I just now registered there and submitted a ticket.

When selecting the problem type (“2FA assistance”), I was told to read a support page that linked to a blog post: GitLab Support is no longer processing MFA resets for free users

Apparently my account is irrecoverable, so I requested it be deleted. Maybe I could re-sign up with a different email address, but I don’t know as I care to use GitLab since they couldn’t even be bothered to inform me that their security policy was going to change. Anyway…

Thank you, again

Yep they don’t. The only option is you can reset yourself by generating new codes, but it means having uploaded an SSH key to your Gitlab account before being locked out. So if that wasn’t done, then yeah the account is not recoverable.

Github apparently still do offer resets albeit it might takes days or longer to resolve. So it’s surprising really why Gitlab have completely rejected resetting free users when Github still do it. Makes you wonder.

An update:

Much to my pleasant surprise, given how frustrated I was with trying to find a support resource, the Support Engineer that responded to my ticket was very helpful.

I thought that the code I never received was a 2FA code. It wasn’t. It was an identity verification code since I hadn’t logged in for a while. And apparently, everything I did to try to receive the code and/or regain access to my account (“resend code”, “update email”, “reset password”) caused my account to be blocked as an anti-abuse measure.

But once my account was unblocked, I still did not receive the identity verification code. The support tech looked at the mail server log and found that the code wasn’t even sent; and suggested, as a work-around, that I reset my password.

That worked, and then, upon subsequently attempting to log in, the system actually sent the verification code. So, I can now log in to my account.

I probably wouldn’t have tried any more to resolve the issue if you hadn’t posted the link to GitLab Support, @iwalker . Thank you.

Glad you managed to get it sorted out!