I am unable to login to bitbucket because my 2FA authentication code is always rejected

Neil O'Brien

I updated my bitbucket account last week to use 2FA, but after doing that, every code I enter using google authenticator is rejected. I have tried relogging in with a valid recovery code and authenticator code.

The error I get is:

invalid two-step authentication code.

My code changes every 2 minutes and I have used ones from just after it changes to see if it is a problem with the time on my laptop (which matches phone time on two laptops and two phones so I don't think it is a time mismatch).

I am able to login to Jira and Ops-genie, I even disabled 2FA from my OG which should be the same as bitbucket atlassian account, but bitbucket still asks for an authentication code and still will not verify it.

Theodora Boudale

Hi Neil,

Bitbucket Cloud uses Atlassian accounts (the ones for id.atlassian.com) for authentication.

At the moment, it is possible to set up 2FA both for the Atlassian account (in https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/security/two-step-verification) and also for the Bitbucket account (in https://bitbucket.org/account/settings/two-step-verification/manage).

If both are enabled, then there should be two entries in the authenticator app of your phone. One generating codes for Atlassian account 2FA and a second one generating codes for Bitbucket 2FA. It is not possible to use Atlassian account 2FA codes for Bitbucket and vice versa. 

I can see in our system that Atlassian account 2FA for your account is disabled, but Bitbucket 2FA is still enabled. It also sounds like the codes you are using may be the ones for the Atlassian account instead.

Do you have a two accounts/entries in the authenticator app on your phone, one for Atlassian and a second one for Bitbucket? If so, can you try using the 2FA codes generated from the Bitbucket one?

In case there is no account/option for Bitbucket in your authenticator app, you can do either of the following:

1. You can retrieve 6 recovery codes if you run the following command on the machine where you have your SSH keys for Bitbucket:

ssh git@bitbucket.org recovery_codes

Please note that these codes are for one time use only, so you can use one of them to log in to Bitbucket and a second one to disable 2FA in the Bitbucket account. Afterwards, you can set it up again if you wish.

2. When you get asked for a Bitbucket 2FA code in your browser, you'll see a link 'Forgot code?' at the bottom of the page. Select that, follow the instructions, and an email will be sent in 24 hours to your Bitbucket account's email that will allow you to disable 2FA.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Kind regards,
Theodora