Android “Your username and password do not match” Error

6 Comments »

For the longest time, I could not seem to get passed the error “Your username and password do not match” on my Droid 3 from Motorola.  You would think, being an Android phone, logging into its own services should not be a problem whatsoever.  The first you need to know is: no, you are not entering the wrong password–you just need to be entering an “application specific password” because you have 2-step verification enabled in your Google Account.  The good news is there is a work-around (besides just buying an iPhone, which is the easiest and best solution).  In this article I attempt to describe how to add a Google account to your Android device, when receiving the common error of “Your username and password do not match”.

This problem is directly related to Google’s new “2-step verification” account settings.  I really enjoy the extra verification, but there are some things you need to know if you want to use it and this error is plaguing you.  The easiest way to fix this problem is to simply disable “2-Step Verification” from Google, but the real fix is getting an application specific password for your android device.


Disabling Google’s 2-Step Verification (quick fix)

This Google article explains how to disable their new security feature:  http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1064203

Or just go here and disable the 2-step verification.


Creating an Application Specific Password for your Android Device (real fix)

  1. Login to your Google Account Settings page.
  2. Go to the Security tab.
  3. Click the Edit button next to 2-step verification.
  4. Click Manage application-specific passwords.
  5. Under “Step 1 of 2:” type in a Name in the name field (this doesn’t matter so much, just for your own records… example  ”Android Device Login”)
  6. Click Generate password.
  7. Use the resulting password as the “password” field when adding your google account on your Android device.  (Include spaces in the password)  (The username is still your Google Account email)

Now when you use your login name and this new generated application-specific password, everything should work!  The two-step verification process is a very good idea now that so much is tied to your Google Account these days.  I hope this helps someone; it took me a while to figure out what was actually going on, but the fix described above definitely worked for me.

Computer Engineering July 5th 2012