Question
Can't enable 2FA — it keeps saying "Invalid PIN, please try again"
- Posted March 16, 2019
- Security
I am unable to re-enable two-factor authentication on my account.
After getting a new phone, I logged in with a back-up code and disabled 2FA. Now, every time I try to re-enable it, I get the “Invalid PIN, please try again.” error (error response is code: 'InvalidArgument', desc: 'failed to validate authenticator 2FA method').
Am I doing something wrong?
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Greetings!
This can occur if your time/date is not synchronized on your device, as this is part of the algorithm. The steps to set this may be different per device, but as an example I will explain how to do it with my Pixel 3 (Android):
- Go to Settings app
- Go to System
- Go to Date & Time
- Enable “Automatic date & time”
Jarland
Same here, but the phone is not even new. Suddenly Google Authenticator’s codes just stopped working. Thus I tried to re-enable 2FA which led finally this “Invalid PIN, please try again” problem.