BT ID - We seem to have a technical issue. Please try again later

[leeallanbrown]

Hi there,

I'm looking for some help here.

I assisted my Auntie setting up new BT Broadband (equipment came and she is connected and very happy) - when signing up we thought she created an account but it appears she didn't, and wants to do so to be able to see bills etc.

When we try to register, we get the "We seem to have a technical issue. Please try again later" issue. Have scoured the forums, tried with alternative emails, checked for an activation email - but still no luck, so we are somewhat stumped. 

The email she signed up with is the one she whishes to use (as she only uses 1 email). 

Can anyone assist with this - @JohnC2 (I seen you have assisted another couple of customers with similar issues). 

Many thanks,

Lee

[Michael_D]

Hi @leeallanbrown 

Welcome to the community.

I know how important it is to have access to be able to manage the account online. 

The best people to speak to would be our customer service guides, who can locate the account and check if there are any details registered to it yet.

You can see how to reach the team on our Contact Us page. 

Michael

[Itzzannie]

I know this was probably sorted ages ago given the post is from 2 years ago, but in case anyone else finds this thread with the same issue, I wanted to share what worked for me.

I had exactly the same problem with the “We seem to have a technical issue. Please try again later” message when trying to create a BT ID. After a lot of back and forth, I was told it was down to the email address I was using.

I was registering with a Hotmail email, which BT’s system wouldn’t accept properly (even though it doesn’t tell you that). As soon as I switched to a Gmail address, the registration went through without any issues.

So if anyone is stuck in the same loop:

• Try registering with a different email provider (Gmail worked for me)
• Once the BT ID is created, everything else works as normal

Hope this helps someone who ends up here as frustrated as I was 🙂

[safesploit]

I hit the same error when creating a BT account and BT ID, and it turned out not to be a temporary outage, but a combination of unclear account rules and poor error messaging.

Posting this in case it helps others who are stuck.

---

1) BT uses multiple email roles (not explained)

BT account setup involves more than one email address, but this isn’t made clear during registration.

• Primary Contact Email
  Used for initial registration, billing?, and general communications

• BT ID (must be an email address)
  Used for login/authentication after setup
  ⚠️ This cannot be the same as the Primary Contact Email

• Recovery Email
  Used for account recovery / password resets

If you try to reuse the same email address for multiple roles, the system may fail with:

“We seem to have a technical issue. Please try again later”

This looks like a system error, but it’s actually a validation failure that isn’t explained.

---

2) BT ID activation email timing matters

After setup, you receive an email titled “Activate your BT ID”.
This email is sent to your BT ID (username) email address, not the Primary Contact Email.

There is a hidden timing window for activation:

• If you open the link too soon, you may see:

  “Please allow at least 10 minutes from the time you receive your activation email…”

• If you open it too late (around ~30 minutes), the link expires

The valid window appears to be roughly 10–30 minutes, but this is not clearly stated.

---

3) Password errors are misleading

When creating an account on both secureorder.bt.com and auth.bt.com, password complexity failures do NOT return useful feedback.

Instead of explaining which password complexity rule failed, the site shows messages like:

• “Please make sure all the fields are selected”

• “We seem to have a technical issue”

In reality, the password is being rejected by backend complexity rules, but the UI does not explain why.
This led to trial and error even with strong, password-manager-generated passwords.

---

4) 2-step verification note

Email-based verification codes can take several minutes to arrive, while SMS codes arrive almost instantly.
If available, SMS is the more reliable option during setup as of writing.

Hopefully this saves someone else the time and frustration, the error message(s) makes it look like a system outage, but it’s actually a set of undocumented rules...