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...and sometimes, they don't

I had a slightly disappointing experience with Apple support today.

I've been an Apple user for many years. I created an Apple ID back when they introduced the iTunes music store. I've used it ever since.

A few years ago, when Apple was getting a lot of bad press because people's Apple IDs were getting hacked, Apple introduced 2-step verification for Apple IDs. When you switched to 2-step, you're given a recovery key (an RK) -- a long password-like string. They warn you at the time that you must store your RK in a safe place. I thought that I stored it in a known, safe place.

Back in mid-May, after returning from overseas travel, I decided to change the password on my Apple ID. Something went wrong. Neither my old password nor my new password worked any more.

It turns out that if this happens, you eventually end up at this Apple support page. Short version: you must have either your password or your RK. Lose both, and you're screwed.

So, I went to get my RK, and it wasn't where I thought it was. It wasn't in the other place where it could have been, either. Uh, oh. There's a remote chance that it's in a storage locker on another continent, but it's probably gone.

Now, I don't use my Apple ID for much any more, but I do have a Macbook with the "Find My Mac" feature enabled. With this feature, in theory, if my computer is stolen, I can use "Find My Mac" to locate it. When I changed my password, my Macbook lost its mind. I was getting constant pop-up messages warning me that there was a problem with my Apple ID. A new message would appear the second I closed the old one. Because of "Find My Mac", the computer wouldn't let me disable the Apple ID without entering my password.

I'd been procrastinating, but today, I finally called Apple Support. They offered three languages: German, French, and Italian. Fortunately, I chose German and the support agent spoke English. We spent a long time on the phone. She kept insisting that their system showed no record of me changing my password, so my old password should work. Eventually, she pushed me to someone else with a lovely Irish accent. I started over, and the new agent quickly told me that without either a RK or password, the account was gone. 

"Okay," I said, "I can live with that. How, though, do I disable the warnings on my Macbook?"

It turns out that there's a trick: You create a new administrator account with another Apple ID. You turn on "Find My Mac" on the new ID. When you do this, you get a warning that "Find My Mac" can't be used on two different accounts from one machine at once. Then, it asks if you'd like to disable the service on the other account. If you choose "Yes", it doesn't prompt you for the other account's password. It just disables it. Having done that, I was able to remove both old and new Apple IDs from the machine.

Upside: my Macbook is usable again. Downside: 10 years worth of iTunes songs gone. A few photos from iPhone 4 days gone (fortunately, I have backups of most of them). A curious security gap in the "Find My Mac" service discovered. Oh, and well over an hour on the phone wasted.

Lesson learned: don't touch ANYTHING with an Apple ID unless you know where the Recovery Key is.

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