Common Issues

Contact your system administrator if you have an issue that isn't listed here.

I need to reactivate Duo Mobile

If you get a new phone you'll need to re-activate Duo Mobile. You may enroll your new device yourself using Duo's device management portal if self-service is enabled. Otherwise, ask your administrator to send you a new activation link.

Choose your platform on the left for specific activation instructions.

If your administrator enabled Duo Mobile's backup and restore functionality and you previously backed up your Duo Mobile accounts then you can restore your accounts to Duo Mobile on your new phone (same platform as the original device i.e. Android to Android and iOS to iOS) via the guided recovery process. See the full Duo Restore guide here.

I have stopped receiving push notifications on Duo Mobile.

You may have trouble receiving push requests if there are network issues between your phone and our service. Many phones have trouble determining whether to use the WiFi or cellular data channel when checking for push requests, and simply turning the phone to airplane mode and back to normal operating mode again often resolves these sort of issues, if there is a reliable internet connection available. Similarly, the issue may be resolved by turning off the WiFi connection on your device and using the cellular data connection.

Check the time and date on your phone and make sure they are correct. If the date and time on your phone are manually set, try changing your device's configuration to sync date and time automatically with the network.

iOS users can run a troubleshooting tool from within Duo Mobile version 3 (3.32.0 or later v3 releases). To run the tool:

Open the Duo Mobile app on your iOS device and tap the Edit button in the top left of the accounts list screen, then tap the name of the account for you aren't receiving push requests.
Next, tap the Get Started button in the "Missing Notifications?" section of the "Account Details" screen.
Duo Mobile performs the test. If any step fails, you'll receive further troubleshooting suggestions. After taking the suggested actions, tap **Run test again* to retry.

The steps that Push Troubleshooting performs automatically are as follows:

Check device settings.
Check internet connectivity.
Check that the device can contact Duo's cloud service.
Attempts to send a test Duo Push notification.

Should none of these actions help, see the Duo Knowledge Base for additional iOS and Android troubleshooting steps.

If you can't get Duo Push working on your own and your administrator has enabled Duo's device management portal, you can log in with a passcode generated by the Duo Mobile app and send a new activation link to your phone. See the My Settings & Devices guide for instructions.

If you've tried the suggestions here but can't get Duo Push working or reactivate your device yourself, please contact your organization's Duo administrator to request reactivation of Duo Mobile.

I lost my phone.

Contact your Duo administrator immediately if you lose your phone or suspect that it's been stolen!

If your organization enabled Duo's self-service feature and you had previously enrolled a second authentication device you can use My Settings & Devices to delete your lost or stolen phone.

If you aren't able to log in to Duo at all then your Duo administrator can disable the missing phone for authentication and help you log in using another method.

While it's important that you contact your administrator if you lose your phone, remember that your password will still protect your account.

I use Duo Mobile to generate passcodes for services like Instagram and Facebook, and I can't log in.

You can use Duo Mobile to generate passcodes for use with third-party services like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and others. When setting this up, you likely logged into those sites, visited the security settings for your account, and scanned a QR code provided by that site with Duo Mobile.

Duo does not have access to your third-party accounts or account credentials, so our Support Team is unable to help if you become locked out of these accounts.

If the application provided recovery codes to you when you enabled two-factor authentication, use a recovery code to log into the application, then visit the security settings where you first set up 2FA to restore Duo Mobile passcode access.

If you previously enabled Duo Restore for third-party accounts and made a backup, you can restore the account to your device.

If you don't have a Duo Mobile backup to restore or you experience some other issue logging in, please refer to the documentation for the application you're trying to log in to or contact the support team for that application for more help.

See the article What do I do if I’m locked out of Instagram, Facebook, or another third-party Duo Mobile account? in the Duo Knowledge Base for additional information.

My hardware token stopped working.

Contact your administrator if your token stops working or if you can't log in with the passcodes it generates.

Your token can get "out of sync" if the button is pressed too many times in a row and the generated passcodes aren't used for login. In some cases this can happen by accident if the token is stored next to other objects in a pocket, backpack, etc. Your administrator will ask you to generate three passcodes in a row and can attempt to resynchronize the token.

I am running an older version of iOS and I am not able to install the current version of Duo Mobile from the App Store.

The minimum supported operating system version for Duo Mobile version 4 on Apple devices is iOS 13. Duo Mobile was removed from the App Stores for iOS 11 and 12 and earlier iOS versions. Users with compatible devices are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of iOS and install the current Duo Mobile release from the App Store.

iOS 10 users may download the last Duo Mobile version compatible with that iOS version (3.28.1) via Apple's TestFlight program.

You'll need to install the Apple TestFlight application on your device.
Once you have TestFlight installed, tap this link and then tap Install to install Duo Mobile 3.28.1 on your iOS 10 device.

No Duo Mobile releases are available for iOS versions earlier than 10.

Contact your administrator if further assistance is required.

I am running an older version of Android and I am not able to install the current version of Duo Mobile from the App Store.

The minimum supported operating system version for Duo Mobile version 4 on Android devices is Android 8. Duo Mobile was removed from the Play Stores for Android 6 and earlier versions. Users are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of Android supported by their phones and install the current Duo Mobile release from the App Store if running Android 8 or later.

Android 7 users may download the last compatible Duo Mobile release (v3.47.0) as an APK file and sideload it onto their device. Refer to the article Which versions of Android does Duo Mobile support? for more information about sideloading Duo Mobile on Android 7.

No Duo Mobile releases are available for Android versions earlier than 7.

Contact your administrator if further assistance is required.

I am using Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Duo Prompt does not display correctly.

For the best results we do not recommend using Internet Explorer's Compatibility View with Duo authentication. You may be able to turn off Compatibility View yourself.

From the Address bar:

If the Compatibility View button displays in the Address bar to the right of the page address, you can click the button to exit Compatibility mode.

From the Internet Explorer Tools Menu:

In the Internet Explorer browser window press the Alt key to display the menu bar. Navigate to Tools → Compatibility View settings and make one or more of the following changes:

Remove the website where you use Duo authentication from the "Websites you've added to Compatibility View"
Uncheck the "Display all websites in Compatibility View" option if present and enabled.
Uncheck the "Display intranet sites in Compatibility View" option.

Click the Close button to save your change.

Contact your administrator if the Duo Prompt continues to display incorrectly.

Other issues

Please check our knowledge base or contact your system administrator if you have an issue that isn't listed here.

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