Username Issue

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  actuallyephaemera · Member · Jul 16, 2019 at 8:37 am

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  The first time I tried to sign up for gravatar/a wordpress account, the username “ephaemera” was available, no errors were issued, but when I clicked the button to complete sign-up, it simply greyed out and nothing further happened for a couple of minutes.
  I restarted the attempt to sign up, and was given the error;

  Choose a different username. This one is not available.

  But, attempting to log in as either “ephaemera” or with the associated email address, I was told;

  (!) User does not exist.

  I understand roughly why this is happening; it’s the WordPress policy of never allowing old usernames to be re-used. However, this appears to be a legitimate error, as on my first attempt there was no

  Choose a different username. This one is not available.

  error shown. The system appears to have registered the username from my first signup attemp, but not to any actual user. Please can I get this fixed? I just wanted a gravater for my username, and gravater usernames are apparently wordpress.com usernames, not the changeable displaynames.

  Thanks for reading.

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · Jul 16, 2019 at 3:48 pm

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  It appears that the _lack_ of error the first time was the actual error, sorry about that!

  Usernames and site names share the same namespace here, so you won’t be able to register ephaemera as a username because https://ephaemera.wordpress.com/ exists already.

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  actuallyephaemera · Member · Jul 18, 2019 at 11:50 am

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  Thanks for getting back to me! :)

  But, attempting to log in as either “ephaemera” or with the associated email address, I was told;

  (!) User does not exist.

  That doesn’t seem to gel with a user named ephaemera already existing. Pretty please would you check your database, to see if your ephaemera ever actually existed? I appreciate they may have, and changed their username since, but I’d assume if they had existed you’d see e.g. at least one email address for them (and that it wouldn’t be the one associated with my account)?

  Thanks again!

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  fstat · Staff · Jul 18, 2019 at 12:48 pm

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  Hi there,

  staff-blorbo already confirmed that it’s not possible to get that username.

  but I’d assume if they had existed you’d see e.g. at least one email address for them (and that it wouldn’t be the one associated with my account)?

  That is not possible because an email address cannot be associated with multiple WordPress.com accounts.

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  themagicrobot · Member · Jul 18, 2019 at 12:49 pm

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  As staff-blorbo said above https://ephaemera.wordpress.com/ exists and consequently the matching username is reserved for that site and that site only.

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  themagicrobot · Member · Jul 18, 2019 at 12:50 pm

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  Apologies for overlapping with you @fstat.

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  fstat · Staff · Jul 18, 2019 at 3:17 pm

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  No need to apologize @themagicrobot :) Your contribution to the forums is invaluable. Plus two answers are always better than one ;)

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  actuallyephaemera · Member · Jul 18, 2019 at 8:24 pm

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  I didn’t realise WordPress doesn’t autocreate an empty site with your username when you sign up. Thanks, than!

  xoxo

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  actuallyephaemera · Member · Jul 18, 2019 at 8:25 pm

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  ^then!