background: my Apple ID is over 10 years old. I first got it before it went public, when it was needed to access GSX as an Apple service tech. When I started working at the job I had to create an account to tie to the store and my certs and my repairs. No one really understood it well and everyone thought they had to use an email address for it, so I put in my work email. (back then, apple IDs were whatever you wanted, they didn't have to be an email address)
Time passes, and the store changes names and the domain name goes away, but it doesn't matter because apple isn't using my apple ID as an email address. BUT THEN IT IS. All new Apple IDs past what, 2008 or so needed to be email addresses. ok whaever, not my problem. It won't let me change my apple id because all my certs are tied to it and will "disappear" if I make a new apple id. (the certs are NOT transferrable)
ok now to present. Today at work I tried to sign into me.com to enter a calendar event with an alert interval my phone won't offer me. (not sure if I can from the web or if it HAS to be done on my computer, but my home internet was DOWN when I got up this morning and I didn't have time to sort it out before I left for work so I can't remote into my computer at home to edit the calendar there)
So it has me sign in, using the usual ancient apple id that looks like an email address but really isn't an hasn't been good for a decade. It accepts my password, and then tells me I need to "verify my email address to continue". Well, that's not going to work, not with that anyway. I assume it for some reason tried to email my id and it of course bounced so it wants something valid. I'm positive all the ACTUAL email addresses in my account are good, but it's asking me to enter something. I decide to postpone this till I get home. As it turns out, that was an uneducated yet extraoredinarily wise choice.
I get home and spend 30 minutes sorting out mediacom madness. Finally get internet back up. Phone wants to update. ok whatever. Alarm pops up, "sort out me.com", ok. Back to that. Same popup when I try to login, it wants to "verify my address". ok, whatever, so I put in the actual email address in my account, which will actually WORK now that my mailserver is back on the internet. I'm expeting to see a "we've emailed a clickable link to that address"... but nope. instead.... "all hell breaks loose"
To my shock, it says Your Apple ID has successfully been changed!
I did NOT ask for that, and I sure as heck would have not approved of it. I suspected what sort of chaos that would cause. Too late though, the bell has been rung with absolutely NO warning.
The next 2 hours are spent on the phone with apple sorting out the mess. Everything on my computer and my phone thinks it's signed in, but it's not. And some of it I can't even sign out of as a result. The rep tells me I should have signed out of everything before changing my ID. Duh. It never TOLD me it was going to do that or I might have!
Highlights: icloud keychain sends a verification code to my iphone, while it's updating, before we get its apple id even fixed. that dialog had to rot on my screen for almost half an hour before I actuallly got access to the text message, because I couldn't get past the update screen on the phone because it was trying to get me signed back in using my old apple id and wouldn't do ANYTHING short of "Emergency Call"
You have to turn off Find My iPhone to sign out of your apple id. But you can't sign out if you don't have a password that works with the (old) apple id. The only way to update your apple id is to sign out. catch-22 much?
and some other gems I'm too exhaused to recall.
god I hope I never have to go through that again.
Moral of the story: don't change your Apple ID unless you really really need to. and don't do anything ELSE that MIGHT be an apple id change in disgiuise
