BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

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David
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BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by David » Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:37 pm

Does anyone understand the relationship between BT, Yahoo, and FlickR post migration? Just spent a morning trying to untangle them in terms of passwords and user ID's - seems complicated beyond a belief. Has anyone achieved it without closing accounts and starting again?
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graeme
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by graeme » Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:39 pm

Nope. I just quit Flickr. Couldn't be bothered with it any more.
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jason
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:59 pm

David wrote:Does anyone understand the relationship between BT, Yahoo, and FlickR post migration? Just spent a morning trying to untangle them in terms of passwords and user ID's - seems complicated beyond a belief. Has anyone achieved it without closing accounts and starting again?
I had a free Flickr Pro account with my BT Broadband account (as you do/did I presume).

Sometime during or before Jan 2014 I received a Flickr email advising me of the Yahoo/BT split inviting me to continue with my account. I cannot remember what buttons I clicked online, but was able to simply create a new @yahoo.co.uk email address (only used for login, nothing else) and pay a sub ($44.95/2 yrs) to maintain my existing Pro account and photostream, ie. no change at all other than login address and now paying a subscription.


o/t - weirdly, more than 2 years since BT started migrating BT Yahoo email to BT Mail, I am still BTYahoo :?


<edit to add> I think you can choose to migrate to a free account if you want, just lose the Pro perks (no ads, stats, etc IIRC)

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David
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by David » Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:28 pm

jason wrote:
David wrote:Does anyone understand the relationship between BT, Yahoo, and FlickR post migration? Just spent a morning trying to untangle them in terms of passwords and user ID's - seems complicated beyond a belief. Has anyone achieved it without closing accounts and starting again?
I had a free Flickr Pro account with my BT Broadband account (as you do/did I presume).

Sometime during or before Jan 2014 I received a Flickr email advising me of the Yahoo/BT split inviting me to continue with my account. I cannot remember what buttons I clicked online, but was able to simply create a new @yahoo.co.uk email address (only used for login, nothing else) and pay a sub ($44.95/2 yrs) to maintain my existing Pro account and photostream, ie. no change at all other than login address and now paying a subscription.


o/t - weirdly, more than 2 years since BT started migrating BT Yahoo email to BT Mail, I am still BTYahoo :?


<edit to add> I think you can choose to migrate to a free account if you want, just lose the Pro perks (no ads, stats, etc IIRC)
I assume you don't have a BT account (are are not using BT)? I kept my FlirkR account through BT mail (no Fee) by linking the 'required' yahoo email it to my BT ID. The account then returned to Pro status, as I guess they had a rethink for BT customers.

My main concern is all that jiggery pokery, with the yahoo log-on, has created passwords that work in one context not not another. In other words my BT ID gives me access to all things BT and Yahoo, but, as my passwords have changed over time, they have not been shared between companies. For instance I can log in to my yahoo account via BT but not via Yahoo, or Flickr for that matter, with the same password. The problem is that I can't even see the alias email FlickR was given to log back in or request a new password. Even google chrome password manager is stumped, and that's normally bullet proof.

Just seems like madness that a simple single log on process has be fragmented within one site.
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:54 pm

David wrote:I assume you don't have a BT account (are are not using BT)? I kept my FlirkR account through BT mail (no Fee) by linking the 'required' yahoo email it to my BT ID. The account then returned to Pro status, as I guess they had a rethink for BT customers.
I was and remain a BT Broadband customer. At the time, there was an indication from Flickr/Yahoo that access with BT account ID login would not continue. Some panicked reading of the Flickr discussions suggested I had the choice to switch to free or Pro with yahoo login if I wanted to retain my existing Flickr photostream. I chose Pro with a subscription fee.

It may have all changed now of course. Bit irritating if I could have saved ~$2/mth, but c'est la vie. But to clarify, have you maintained a free Pro account?


On the subject of login fragmentation, I have/had similar experience with BT Sport login. Same email address as 'My BT' login, but a different password!! Was damned frustrating until I got it all squared away.

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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:00 pm

jason wrote:But to clarify, have you maintained a free Pro account?
I just went to find the answer to that question for myself on Flickr, and see you're account isn't Pro. TBH dunno can't recall all my benefits of paying now, but it's off topic!!

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David
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by David » Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:29 pm

jason wrote:
jason wrote:But to clarify, have you maintained a free Pro account?
I just went to find the answer to that question for myself on Flickr, and see you're account isn't Pro. TBH dunno can't recall all my benefits of paying now, but it's off topic!!
This is getting interesting!

Image

From my end it's a pro account. Certainly, I seem to have no limits on storage

EDIT: Also from their site
Your Flickr account

You must always log in to Flickr with this email address You have a Pro account, at no cost as long as you keep your BT Yahoo! service.
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Tue Jul 12, 2016 5:41 pm

Getting stranger isn't it! When I view your page, or your name in my following/followers lists, you don't have 'Pro' indicated.

<edit to fix photo>

Image
Last edited by jason on Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

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David
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by David » Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:45 pm

Some more work and I think I'm beginning to sort it out. Don't take this as gospel, but my best guess.

There seems to be three (or more) possible embodiment of a FlickR account. Accounts dating to prior migration exist either as a view only (nolonger able to log in) or as a patched interface using alias emails to work with BT or Yahoo account. They carry broken and out of date links and may be labelled as Pro and have some Pro functionality but only when you are logged into them.

New Flicker accounts that are post migration (with new unique email address and ID) which work properly and are available free as Pro versions with BT broadband accounts, or subscription with Yahoo.

May advice would be to open a new Flicker account and transfer any valuable pics, and then let the old one, that hasn't been upgraded, die peacefully.
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:54 am

David wrote:New Flicker accounts that are post migration (with new unique email address and ID) which work properly and are available free as Pro versions with BT broadband accounts, or subscription with Yahoo.
This is news to me. Are you saying that BT is continuing to pay Yahoo for BT customers post-BT Mail migration to continue holding Pro accounts on Flickr? That suggests I was too early a responder to the initial comms and discussion forums way back at end 2013. Meh! I recognise this as being the message I received back then:
"Flickr

If you use your BT Yahoo! log in [ie one of your BT email addresses - Jason] to access Flickr, this will still work until you are moved to BT Mail. If you do nothing then your photos will become inaccessible after a while.

If you want to keep using Flickr, Yahoo is creating a way for you to download your information or create a new Flickr account. We'll be giving BT Yahoo! Flickr users more information about that in advance of any changes."
Also this, which I followed at the time: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/deta ... o-services

…I guess the fact I'm still not yet migrated from BT Yahoo to BT Mail service over 2 years later (!) means I could have continued my free Pro account (till now at least) by not switching to a Yahoo email login. But at the end of the day, everything works as I want it to and I'm content to stick with my setup now - I do not wish to discard my old photostream and the history attached to each image and my Flickr is no longer connected in any way to my ISP.

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David
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by David » Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:24 am

I opened a new Flickr Account yesterday using an alias BT Yahoo email account that seems to be one of my 11 BT email addresses (still not 100% sure about the difference between BT Mail and BT Yahoo as all that seems to changes is the graphics)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/143944595@N08/

As I hope you will see, it's a PRO account with a BT address and free.

But I agree, a well established account is not worth changing. I just think we may have been lead down the garden path :? It seems new BT flickr accounts are as they always used to be, and the cynical side of me thinks this was a marketing exercise aimed at pushing existing BT FlickR (old) customers into Yahoo subscriptions.

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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:48 am

Yes, I see you're Pro there.

If your BT Broadband email service has not yet been migrated from BT Yahoo to BT Mail (mine still hasn't, almost 3 years since they notified me it would change age over!!), then naturally you can still have a free Flickr Pro account since you're still, at this time, a BT Yahoo-er.

Have you checked your migration to BT Mail using the link within my link above? Here: http://diagnostics.bt.com/login/?workflow=EmailChecker

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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:04 am

The dumping of Yahoo (BT Yahoo email service) by BT and migration to BT Mail (a new email service provider) was following the repeated hacking issues with BT Yahoo accounts back in Autumn 2013.

I remember receiving lots of notification emails that I would be ported soon, and links such as these: https://home.bt.com/pages/email/index2.html and https://home.bt.com/pages/email/index.h ... n=newemail

Nothing happened for months as the checker linked above continued to report my mail service being BT Yahoo, so I asked tech support one time I was speaking to them on another matter. They said there were a lot of accounts and it would take time (which seemed an odd answer!).

And here we are almost 3 years later and our mail accounts (and anyone I know with BT's accounts) remain Yahoo! Still. :scratch

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David
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by David » Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:08 am

jason wrote:Yes, I see you're Pro there.

If your BT Broadband email service has not yet been migrated from BT Yahoo to BT Mail (mine still hasn't, almost 3 years since they notified me it would change age over!!), then naturally you can still have a free Flickr Pro account since you're still, at this time, a BT Yahoo-er.

Have you checked your migration to BT Mail using the link within my link above? Here: http://diagnostics.bt.com/login/?workflow=EmailChecker
I believe I migrated last year sometime - my BT Yahoo page went to a BT mail and I had to change my old FlickR account login. What I think is happening is that FlickR allows you to set up a proxy Yahoo account from a BT Mail address (if you ask for one). But time will tell if it is permanent or not, and nothing would surprise me now.
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Re: BT, Yahoo, and FlickR - an IT headache?

Post by jason » Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:12 am

I remember us discussing the migration in the past and you saying you'd been migrated I've just taken the liberty of checking your email (in your new Flickr account) and it reports BT Yahoo. Which makes sense of course.

But to clarify, and for my sanity, are your primary and other addresses reported as BT Mail service using the checker?

It's an omnishambles isn't it!

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