I have several Instagram accounts, and they’re all linked to a single main account. Recently, I was switching between my accounts and I got a weird error. It would flash in red “challenge required” at the bottom of the screen, then try to load something, but nothing happened.
Basically, I was locked out of my IG and couldn’t get into the rest of my accounts. I tried to logout of IG, but since all of my accounts were linked, it would log me back in on all of them. Clearly, it had login information stored or cached and simply pulled the same info instead of re-logging. Next, I tried to delete the app completely and re-install it. I restarted my phone to make sure there’s nothing cached in there. It didn’t help.
Here’s my theory on what happened. At some point Instagram started to require a birth date and year for all accounts. On top of this, it required acceptance of new terms and conditions. Due to some error, the birthday prompt wouldn’t load, and then the terms and conditions page wouldn’t load either. It became impossible to use the account without entering birthday, and without accepting the new terms. This resulted in a blank screen and inability to log into the account.
Quick Fix
One of my accounts still functioned, the main one, where I had previously entered birthday I guess. So if you need to switch back to another account, on iPhone you can hold IG icon, wait for the menu to appear, and then select “Switch account.” After the app loads, you’ll need to exit the app and open it one more time for another account to load correctly. That’s a quick fix to get back into a working account.
Solution for challenge required error
To fix the “challenge required” error and the loading issue, I had to jump through several hoops. I tried to login into Instagram via browser such as Safari on iPhone. If you have two-factor authentication enabled (and you should), it will ask you to enter a code which you should receive via text. For me, it took several tries and about half an hour to actually receive the code. So be patient while doing this and try not to break your phone! 😅
When I entered 2FA code and logged in via browser, I was prompted to enter my birthday. Afterwards, it attempted to load something else, but failed. I received the “Please wait a few minutes before you try again” error.
Next, I switched back to the IG app and tried to login with the same account there. I saw the terms and conditions screen, tapped next and accept on several pages. Finally, it let me into my account and worked fine afterwards.
To conclude, in order to fix the challenge required error, one needs to login into IG via both browser and the app. Whatever couldn’t load in the app, should load in the browser and vice versa. I hope this helps, and please let me know in the comments if you have a different solution!
If this helped, consider checking out my IG account! 😉 I’m a multimedia artist living in Texas.
