When trying to access your Hotmail e-mail account, you may encounter the following message:




This security feature will require you to enter the characters that you can see in the box provided. Typically, this box will display either 6 or 8 characters. In this particular instance, the characters that would be typed into the box would be W4HJFA.

If you cannot clearly see the characters, please click the refresh button to refresh the screen and show a different picture. If you are still experiencing difficulty in reading the picture, please click the sound button and follow the onscreen instructions to hear the characters spoken, as this may make it easier to determine what the characters are.


What do I do if I keep seeing this message?

If you keep seeing this message no matter how often you enter the correct characters, there may be a problem with your web browser. The most likely reason why the information you type is not accepted is that your browser (the program that you use to look at websites) is unable to recognise the information you typed in and, considering the information to be incorrect or missing, simply shows you the "Match the picture" image again.

To try to resolve this issue, please delete your cache and cookies (old data files in your web browser). Instructions on how to do this can be found by clicking here (please look for the heading "You may have old data in your browser that needs to be deleted").

If you are still unable to move beyond this point and access your Hotmail account, please try to access your Hotmail account from another computer - you should only see this "Match the picture" image just the one time, so if you are able to complete the process on another computer, you should not encounter it again, even on your own computer.

If the above information does not resolve the issue, please contact Hotmail Support directly for further assistance by clicking here.