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How to fix login issues or error messages with your online account

How to fix login issues or error messages with your online account
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Jess_OVO
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  • March 18, 2022

I’m so sorry to hear of the difficulty you’ve had accessing your online account, @satheesh.

 

This error message is not something we’ve had reported here previously so I’m wondering if this could be an account-specific issue. If you’ve already raised the issue to our Support Team who have passed the details on to our Tech team this team will get in touch with you directly as soon as they’ve managed to get things fixed.

 

In the meantime it might be worth checking whether you’re able to access things via the OVO app instead - You can download this for Android or iOS.

 

I hope this helps.


  • Carbon Cutter**
  • 5 replies
  • March 21, 2022

Today tried to set up my account with password/username/ovo id etc,etc.

The Ovo system just keeps taking me round & round saying “wrong password/username” etc,etc.  I think I’ve now been set up, but I still can’t get into my account to look at bills & usage & so-on.  I feel it’s an unecassarily complicated system - or maybe I’m too old for this now.  I feel ready to give up!!


Blastoise186
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  • 7867 replies
  • March 21, 2022

Hi @ph12ph ,

If you’re having login issues, the best place to get help would be via the Support Team, as we can’t do much here to fix account specific issues.

Thanks for understanding


  • Carbon Cutter**
  • 5 replies
  • March 21, 2022

Thanks Blastoise 186.  I will try the support team tomorrow.

ph12ph


Blastoise186
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  • Plan Zero Hero
  • 7867 replies
  • March 21, 2022

No worries. Please let them know you’ve already tried the usual fixes (you probably have).

Just curious, but what web browser and email program do you use? I don’t need to know your email address (please keep that private!), just what you use to access your emails.


  • Carbon Cutter**
  • 5 replies
  • March 21, 2022

I use Firefox for web browser & BT for emails.

ph12ph


Blastoise186
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  • March 21, 2022

Thanks. I think I may have found the problem then.

Mozilla Firefox is of course, fully supported by OVO’s entire platform, including MyOVO (both legacy and new), main website, Quote & Switch Tool and of course, this forum. However, BT Mail might not be the same story.

BT is known to cause all sorts of headaches in just about every product and service it offers, and has been known to mess up all sorts of stuff as a result. I wouldn’t be surprised if BT Mail is either choking on the emails you’re getting from OVO, or it’s somehow modifying them so that they no longer work properly. Because sadly, I’m afraid it’s that badly designed that there’s more bugs than features in it.

You may want to consider using a Hotmail or Gmail account instead as they tend to be more reliable. It is possible to import existing mail and your contacts to them both, but that’s beyond the scope of what I can cover here on this forum.

I’d still recommend talking to the support team anyway as there might be other issues that need to be fixed.


  • Carbon Cutter**
  • 5 replies
  • March 22, 2022

OK thanks. I’ll get back to you later.

pf12ph


  • Carbon Cutter**
  • 5 replies
  • March 22, 2022

I mean ph12ph!!


  • Carbon Cutter****
  • 9 replies
  • March 31, 2022

Well , nearly 5 months without my account. No bills. Can’t access account to give meter readings. The price cap goes up tomorrow and I still have heard nothing from ovo. I think the only other thing I can do is go to ofgem. I can’t believe this situation.


I am trying to create an account but it keeps telling me my details are wrong and it can’t be recognised? But it has accepted my email address to get me that far so I don’t understand why it won’t recognise me when I enter the rest of my details.


Blastoise186
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  • March 31, 2022

Evening @Hellsbells1987 !

Whoops, that doesn’t sound right to me. You might want to chat with the Support Team in the morning via web chat as they may need to fix a few things with your account.

If that still don’t solve the problem, please stop by here again.


Jess_OVO
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  • 574 replies
  • April 1, 2022

Sorry to hear of the trouble you’ve had logging in to your online account, @Hellsbells1987 .

 

Just in case it helps get things sorted without needing to contact the Support Team we’ve got a troubleshooting guide to some common login issue below.

 

 

Let us know how you get on and if you need any more help once you’re in! 😊


Jess_OVO
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  • April 1, 2022

As mentioned in another thread, I’ve reached out to your directly via a Private Message here, @TH3.


  • Carbon Cutter*
  • 3 replies
  • April 6, 2022

What do we do with the following error?? The Ovo portal is down for over a week now for anyone accessing it from outside the UK:

503 ERROR

The request could not be satisfied.

The Lambda function associated with the CloudFront distribution is invalid or doesn't have the required permissions. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.

Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)Request ID: Dymko7MRpjJcp8NSzmRkh9IYekbGquyDC16LvntczXzGRTNspxOdAA==

 


Jess_OVO
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  • April 6, 2022

Sorry to hear about these login issue, @roryj.

 

We’ve seen really high traffic to our online platforms this week so I’m wondering if this error message is related. In order for me to pass this on to the team I just need to check, is this error message appearing on the browser or app version of your online account? Are you logging in using the email address registered to an OVO UK energy account? And what device/browsers are you using to attempt a login?

 

Once we’ve had these details confirmed I’ll get this raised to the tech team to check whether this is a known bug.

 

Thanks in advance. 


  • Carbon Cutter*
  • 2 replies
  • April 7, 2022

Hello @Jess_OVO 

I am also getting the same error message as @roryj 

I am logging in from a desktop using Google Chrome Browser (Version 100.0.4896.75 (Official Build) (64-bit)) and using my email address registered to an OVO UK energy account.

Thanks. 


  • Carbon Cutter*
  • 3 replies
  • April 7, 2022

I have tried with my Chrome, Brave & Firefox browsers at home, and my Chrome and Edge browsers at work.  The OVO portal website is hosted by amazon, and they have misconfigured their Cloudfront settings. They just don’t seem to know how to fix it though


Jess_OVO
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  • April 7, 2022

Thanks for confirming those details, @roryj and @SLee.

 

I’ve passed this one on to the team and will pop back as soon as I hear more. 🙂


Jess_OVO
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  • 574 replies
  • April 7, 2022

Just a follow-up question from the team on this one.

 

Is this error message appearing before or after your login details are entered, @roryj and @SLee ?


  • Carbon Cutter*
  • 3 replies
  • April 7, 2022
Jess_OVO wrote:

Just a follow-up question from the team on this one.

 

Is this error message appearing before or after your login details are entered, @roryj and @SLee ?

This is after the (successful) login. They have confirmed on Twitter that this just does not work for anyone outside the UK (- they don’t know how to configure their Cloudfront settings correctly). and suggest you use a VPN to pretend to be in the UK to use the portal...


Blastoise186
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  • April 8, 2022

Actually, it’s worth me stopping by here for a second as someone who knows a lot about this stuff.

That error message is deliberately generic on Amazon’s part, so as to not be too descriptive and give away clues as to how things are set up, which can otherwise be a security risk. The only way to see the true data is to have access to the raw logs directly. That error could otherwise mean literally anything. A quick lookup of the HTTP 503 status code reveals something more useful though. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/503

This isn’t config related based on the status code. It’s possible that the server in front of MyOVO really was overloaded, but that doesn’t always mean OVO is at fault.


Blastoise186
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  • April 8, 2022

Just a heads up. I’m starting to think this is a more general issue related to AWS CloudFront than anything OVO is doing. I’m seeing a ton of CloudFront issues today across a lot of websites that are totally unrelated to OVO.

Amazon probably messed up something.


Jess_OVO
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  • April 11, 2022

Not sure if you’re both still having login issues, @roryj and @SLee?

 

I’ve been in touch with our tech team who are looking in to an issue they’ve identified when trying to access your online accounts from Australia. Just to clarify, this is an unexpected technical issue only affecting this area and the team are currently investigating the root cause. They mentioned Lamda functions which goes a bit beyond my technical understanding, any ideas what this means, @Blastoise186?


Blastoise186
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  • April 11, 2022

Ah yes, AWS Lambda. It’s not something I know a ton about, partially because AWS has literally got a bazillion products and services these days and it’s practically impossible for anyone to fully understand all of them.

But my understanding of the basic concept is that Lambda lets you run small programs that can rapidly fire and spin up an instances based on certain events such as (for example) anytime someone logs into MyOVO or submits a meter reading, you could fire up something in Lambda to handle it and after it’s done, the instance is torn down and the instance in the container is destroyed. It’s basically like running a virtual machine, except that you’re only using the very top layer rather than absolutely everything. Nothing persists at all between runs, which is useful if you want to make absolutely sure that nothing sensitive is left on the system between runs.

I suspect that what’s happening here, is that these Lambda instances are only allowed to fire off in very specific AWS Regions, most likely eu-west-2 (London) but AWS CloudFront is trying to access them from outside of that, such as ap-southeast-2 (Sydney) where the Lambda functions don’t exist and Lambda isn’t allowed to run them outside of eu-west-2 or access the AWS S3 Bucket that also lives in the eu-west-2 region. By default, cross-region activity isn’t allowed if memory serves and you have to explicitly set that up if that’s what you want it to do.

I have never used AWS myself so all of this comes from me diving deep into tons of documentation over several years (I like my light bedtime reading!). It doesn’t mean this is exactly how OVO has their instances set up either!


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