Colleague completely locked out of iCloud

I’m posting this in the hopes that someone might have an idea I can share with my colleague:

Help and Hello! I need phone advice. I’ve barely been able to use my phone- and have had no access to certain apps- for weeks. My phone overheated for about three weeks straight, so I reset, and now I can’t log in to my iCloud. I’m in some strange catch-22 where I keep getting bumped into account recovery, but never get a reset option after the recovery period is over. I’ve been on the phone with Apple support multiple times a week for the last three weeks.
All I care about is retaining my photos, so if I can download those, I may abandon this iCloud account. (The problem is since I can’t enter my password, I can’t offer download permissions.)
Has anyone experienced this? I’m a little bit frustrated.

She’s locked out of her account everywhere, not just on the phone (which is only four months old), so logging in on the web to rescue her photos isn’t an option.

Does anyone have any suggestions for resolving the situation?

Fun stuff. This might be obvious in your question, sorry (Apple support would’ve mentioned it), but is she able to get to the security questions at iforgot.apple.com and does she know them? Or is she not able to be presented with them there?

Thanks for the idea! I’m not sure, but I’ll double-check with her.

It seems like there might be some security stuff happening with iCloud. I’m having password issues and I’ve been signed out of all my Apple devices. My Mac keeps asking me to change my password, which I do, but then shows an error “Some iCloud Data isn’t syncing.”

It turns out she was never able to get to the questions.

Edited to add: apparently you don’t get those when you’ve enabled two-factor authentication.

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I wonder if Apple can turn off device protection for her phone on their end? It sounds locked. The other question that I would ask is, can Apple see her iCloud account? Also, am I correct to assume that she had no backups?

If I’ve understood correctly, she doesn’t have backups of the photos.

It would be great if Apple can see the account and turn off device protection temporarily; that might be something she should ask. I assume she’d have to have some way to prove to Apple’s satisfaction that she is who she claims to be.

FWIW, I would also take the phone to a local Apple Store (if possible) to have them analyze it for heat damage. If so, they should replace the phone. Perhaps, something is scrambled in that phone that caused the lock out is my thinking. A new phone might resolve the issue (might not).

My other thought is that the phone might be locked because she tried her password 10x.

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Ah, there’s a thought. She did try taking the phone to the Apple Store, but that was to try to sort out the login issue. I don’t think she had the phone checked for damage. I’ll suggest it.

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Just want to say a big thanks to all chiming in on this thread. The MPU hive mind is great!

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