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The flakiness of cross site login makes me not want to use Stack Exchange sites outside of the 3 or so I have used in the past. It's really sad that the state has been so bad for so long. I've never complained because I figure surely this is a know bug that they are working on.

Anyway, it's been this way since the start so it's time to do something about it.

Here is video of what happens

  1. Visit a site I've never used like https://askubuntu.com/
  2. Click the login link
  3. Choose to login with Stack Exchange
  4. Get prompted for a username and password
  5. Visit Stack Exchange directly to verify that I am indeed logged in.
  6. Try askubuntu again
  7. Log out of Stack Exchange
  8. Repeat.
  9. Fail

I don't even know my password. I don't think I have one. I think I'm signed in via Google. I can't even tell because I am NEVER NOT SIGNED IN to the site wher sign in works. My password manager has no record of an Stack Exchange sites.

This is very frustrating. What am I doing wrong? Are others experiencing this?

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  • 4
    If you're logged in via Google, then why are you trying to use a Stack Exchange login? Use the Google option. Apr 2, 2013 at 14:33
  • I have this problem as well. It's been so long since I signed up with SO that I can't remember the details, but when I try my email & typical password I am told "there is no user with this email". Even though I'm actually logged into SO at the time.. it's not very friendly.
    – Thomas W
    Oct 22, 2013 at 2:44
  • Correction, it tells me "No account with this email found". Definitely not at all helpful or friendly, considering I have been a member & using SO for several years now.
    – Thomas W
    Oct 22, 2013 at 3:00
  • @RichardBronosky -- would you like to vote this issue up? meta.stackexchange.com/questions/202503/…
    – Thomas W
    Oct 22, 2013 at 3:20

1 Answer 1

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"Log in with Stack Exchange" is for folks who have created one of our own OpenID accounts.

You don't have one of those far as I can tell. You're signing in with your Google account, so choose "log in with Google" instead.

You can see what credentials you have on file with us by going to your profile while logged in and clicking "my logins".

If you want to be able to log in with Stack Exchange, you can choose "add more logins..." for the "my logins" section and add a Stack Exchange login to your existing Stack Exchange profile (Yo Dawg!). Once you have verified the confirmation email you can avoid the "which OpenID account did I use" confusion and just log in with Stack Exchange every time.

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  • Thank you for explaining the problem. I edited the answer to add a solution to the problem. If my edit is accepted, I'll accept this answer. Otherwise I'll be forced to post a new answer. Apr 2, 2013 at 15:03
  • 2 years later and I am still spending an hour trying to log into superuser.com this is so damn broken! Aug 5, 2015 at 15:19
  • WTF!?!?!?dropbox.com/s/g7uavtsw4aovmn0/… Aug 5, 2015 at 15:21
  • @BrunoBronosky WTF, indeed. Alas, no repro here? What steps did you take to get to that page?
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Aug 5, 2015 at 17:22
  • I tried to log into openid.stackexchange.com using the email shown at stackoverflow.com/users/edit/117471 (that's my user number, use your own) Turns out that since I originally signed up using my gmail address, I have to use that. I finally got logged in, but it took over an hour. Aug 5, 2015 at 17:53
  • @BrunoBronosky You can log into a Q&A site directly, no need to go to openid.stackexchange.com. You will still need to know which email address is your login, though. If you forget your credentials, click "forgot password?" on the Q&A login page to get an account recovery email.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Aug 5, 2015 at 17:55
  • 1
    The point is that even with one stackexchange's own openid accounts, the UX is still a nightmare. It really needs to be fixed. Aug 5, 2015 at 19:17

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