Cannot enable Pipelines on Bitbucket Free

Question

Hi,

I am unable to turn on Pipelines in my repos. When I go to Settings of the particular repo then Pipelines and Finally Settings I can see a slider button to enable the pipelines. When I click it, it just changes to grey but nothing actually happens. If I refresh the page the button is back to disabled.

I have MFA auth enabled on my account and the Bitbucket, I even tried adding my bank card to the account as I've seen it has been suggested as some sort of authentication. Nothing it working.

I have multiple repos and everywhere the issue is the same.

Any ideas? Thanks

Marcin Pluciennik · Answer

Hi Josh,

* Yes, I have both MFA and 2SV enabled on my account.
* I sign in with a password, it's not linked to any google/ms accounts.
* Tried that already.
* I tried following the Pipelines page and commited an example yml file. The page gets stuck on commiting the yml file however it does actually end up in the repo. Pipelines still not Enabled.
* I am the workspace/account/repo admin and original owner/creator.

Thanks

Josh · Answer

Hi Marcin, that exact "toggle flips grey, then reverts on refresh" behaviour usually means Bitbucket rejected the enable call, and the most common reason on Free (and paid) is two-step verification for Bitbucket itself, not the MFA you already have on your Atlassian account. They're separate checks.

* In Bitbucket, open your avatar > Personal settings > Two-step verification (under Security). If it isn't fully set up there, complete it. Atlassian account MFA at id.atlassian.com is not enough on its own for this gate.
* If your Atlassian account only signs in with Google/Microsoft and has no password, you'll need to set one first (password recovery on id.atlassian.com) so Bitbucket 2SV can finish.
* Log out of Bitbucket completely and log back in, so the session picks up the new 2SV status. Then try the Enable Pipelines toggle again.

If the toggle still won't stick, try enabling via the Pipelines page itself rather than Settings: open the repo's Pipelines tab, pick a starter template, and commit a bitbucket-pipelines.yml to the main branch. That path often enables Pipelines as a side effect when the settings toggle is stuck.

Also confirm you're a workspace admin (or have admin on the repo). A bank card isn't required to turn Pipelines on for Free; it only matters if you later buy extra build minutes.