I understand that you’re getting the following error when entering your recovery phrase:
“Failed to authenticate using this recovery phrase. Did you enter it correctly?"
If you entered your seed phrase to recover your account, and you’re 100% sure that you entered it correctly, then it sounds like you may have accidentally removed your recovery phrase. The Internet Identity service offers a feature to protect your security phrase to prevent it from being deleted by accident. See here for more information: https://support.dfinity.org/hc/en-us/articles/7893595632404-How-can-I-protect-my-Internet-Identity-recovery-phrase-
An alternative is that you may have had your account compromised, and the recovery phrase was removed, and changed.
The final possibility is that you have incorrectly copied down your recovery phrase. Please note, the first word of your recovery phrase always corresponds to your anchor id.
If you have your Internet Identity tied to only one device and you happen to lose access on that device, you would be locked out unless you have correctly saved your recovery phrase. As a best practice, we always recommend that you add multiple devices to your Internet Identity.
If you have your recovery phrase, you can recover your identity by adding a new device to your account. You can follow these steps to recover your Internet Identity if you have your recovery phrase:
- Enter the identity anchor.
- Click the “Lost access and want to recover” link on the login page.
- Enter the recovery phrase.
- Then register a new device (such as a phone, security key, etc.) for login.
Check our Developer Center to learn more about how to add more devices.
In the meantime, the best recovery strategy is to add extra devices or a Yubikey to your account. For more information about Identity and the NNS, please check out our FAQ pages.