When you cannot sign in

Also in Assistants Site admins Resellers Students Contributors

Nearly every failed sign-in is one of five things. They are worth checking in this order, because the first two account for most of them and cost nothing to rule out.

1. The address has no account on this site

Accounts are keyed on your email address. If you have more than one address, only one of them was used — and the other will be refused however carefully you type the password.

Ask whoever added you which address they used. If you were enrolled by an administrator and never received anything from Grapevine, this is almost always why.

2. You are on the wrong site

Each organisation has its own address, and a course belongs to the site it was made on. Your account may work on one site and not another, and a course you are looking for may simply be somewhere else. The site’s name is in the top left of every page — check it is the one you expect.

3. The password is wrong, and you do not need one

Rather than guessing, ask for a sign-in link — see Signing in with an emailed link. It gets you in without a password, and you can set a new one afterwards from your profile if you want one.

4. Too many attempts, too quickly

After eight failed attempts on the same address, Grapevine stops answering for fifteen minutes. This is to stop somebody working through passwords, and it looks the same from the outside as a wrong password — the page refuses you even if you have since remembered the right one.

If you have been trying repeatedly, wait a quarter of an hour and then use a sign-in link rather than guessing again.

5. The link has expired

Sign-in links last about a day. An old one from a previous email will not work. Ask for a new one; the new message will be at the top of your inbox.

Still refused

If none of those is it, tell us the address you are signing in with and the site address you are using. Those two together are nearly always enough to see what has happened, and without them the answer is guesswork.

Please do not send us your password. We never need it, and nobody from Grapevine will ask you for it.