IB Mobile TWS Two-Factor Authentication Delay

ET180 said:
As with probably everyone else on here who uses IB, I use the IB Mobile TWS app to provide my second factor authentication for TWS Desktop and WebTrader login. For the past few years, it has been fast. After submitting my user-name and password, I get a prompt to confirm my identity on my phone within about 2-4 seconds. However, over the past week or two, I have noticed that it is taking much longer, maybe around 3 minutes or longer. Sometimes like last night, it was fast, but more often lately, it's slow. I notice this lag regardless of the wireless network that I am connected to, even when on cellular. Has anyone else noticed this?
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I've noticed a lot of IB/TWS issues in the last month. It feels like they have hired interns to take over the tech stack. For example, I had market data issues that prevented me from trading. Then I had account access issues. This was over the span of one week. I tweeted it, though my tweets get automatically deleted so you won't see it now. The day I tweeted, I had a nice profit but it was stressful as fuck. I didn't trade again until the issues were resolved. To their credit, support said it was a known issue.

I have also noticed this delay in 2FA increasing over time.

I've seen things like this happen before in tech companies before they crater or (more likely) become stale/obsolete. So my worry is that IBKR is somehow on the downtrend.

Perhaps what has happened is in the rush to capture the Robinhood refugees, they have redirected resources in a sub-optimal way and will fix things soon.

My suggestion is to put in a chat with support so they collect data points on issues that customers see.
 
I recently had a related problem. I use the IB mobile app 2 step authentication only to log in to IB account management. The two step authentication quit working because I tried the T Mobile US, international high speed data and free calls plan while traveling in Switzerland. Somehow my cell's location got reset so IB and all my bank send message to mobile authentications quit working (message never came). I needed to reset my android phone and wait 24 hours so that T mobile could fix the problem.
 
It is doing it right now for me, multiple times in a row. IB isn't coming up on my mobile phone for authentication. It did it yesterday morning to me too (although, only once, yesterday.)
So annoying.
 
Sorry to say my reply above needs an update since I've been frequently experiencing intermittent failing delays with IB notifications all past week. Most of the time they just don't arrive in time for the handshake pop-up to keep waiting so it reverts back to the login prompt after 3 minutes.
 
ET180 said:
As with probably everyone else on here who uses IB, I use the IB Mobile TWS app to provide my second factor authentication for TWS Desktop and WebTrader login. For the past few years, it has been fast. After submitting my user-name and password, I get a prompt to confirm my identity on my phone within about 2-4 seconds. However, over the past week or two, I have noticed that it is taking much longer, maybe around 3 minutes or longer. Sometimes like last night, it was fast, but more often lately, it's slow. I notice this lag regardless of the wireless network that I am connected to, even when on cellular. Has anyone else noticed this?
More...
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Yes. I no longer use Second Factor Authentication for the TWS. Issue is IB Server Lag previously discussed.
 
nooby_mcnoob said:
You can fix this by logging into IBKR on your mobile, I think it's got something to do with the app going to sleep on your phone.
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That's a good point. On Android, the OS will periodically prompt you to put apps which use a lot of power to sleep. I made sure that IB Mobile was not on that list. I also added it to the unmonitored apps list so Android will not interfere with its background operation. However, I don't think that's the issue in my case.

https://tunecomp.net/stop-apps-from-draining-battery-on-galaxy/
 
ET180 said:
That's a good point. On Android, the OS will periodically prompt you to put apps which use a lot of power to sleep. I made sure that IB Mobile was not on that list. I also added it to the unmonitored apps list so Android will not interfere with its background operation. However, I don't think that's the issue in my case.

https://tunecomp.net/stop-apps-from-draining-battery-on-galaxy/
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Same, except it still happens until I launch the app manually. So something is fucky.
 
I don't think it is a problem of Android "putting the app to sleep". The problem is happening to me right now. And I've tried opening the android app so it is active BEFORE I even tried logging into TWS. It's clearly a problem on IB's end.
 
Ryan81 said:
I don't think it is a problem of Android "putting the app to sleep". The problem is happening to me right now. And I've tried opening the android app so it is active BEFORE I even tried logging into TWS. It's clearly a problem on IB's end.
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Yeh, I experienced the issue twice today.
 
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