Rhythm matches your Portal sign-in to a contact record by email address, not by the email address shown on your profile. These addresses can differ because association staff can update the email field on your contact record, but that change does not update the email address you use to sign in. Your Portal login email is managed separately through your sign-in provider, so neither you nor association staff can edit it directly.
You do not have a separate username to remember because your email address is what you use to sign in. Rhythm does not automatically copy your sign-in email to your contact record because you may want those addresses to be different, such as when you use one email for daily contact and another to sign in. Once an email address is used to sign in, even by mistake or on the wrong account, Rhythm treats that address as claimed for that sign-in. No one else can use that same address for a different sign-in until the claim is cleared.
When to Use This
Use this when the Portal does not recognize you even though your association has a record for you, or when you need to start signing in with a different email address. If the association does not have a record for you under any address, sign up instead; see Set Up Your Account or Sign In.
Prerequisites
- You are signed in to the Portal with the email address you want to use going forward, or you are ready to set up a new sign-in with it.
- You know the email address on your existing record.
- You can open the inbox for that other address because the confirmation message goes there, not to the address you are signing in with. If you cannot open it, see If You No Longer Have Access to the Old Inbox below.
You Cannot Simply Change Your Sign-In Email
Your profile does not include a setting that changes the email address you use to sign in. Sign-in email addresses must be unique across the Portal, so the address you want to use must be free from any other sign-in first. This control lives outside Rhythm's console entirely, so there is no setting in Security & Settings that changes it for you or for association staff.
To start using a new sign-in email, sign up again with the new address, then connect that new sign-in to your existing record during setup. This keeps the Portal from creating a second, duplicate record. If the new address is already on your existing record, even in a secondary email field instead of the primary one, Rhythm recognizes it the next time you sign in with that address and connects you automatically without the steps below.
If You No Longer Have Access to the Old Inbox
The steps below require access to the inbox for the address already on your existing record because Rhythm uses that message to confirm the request is yours. If you can no longer open that inbox, you cannot complete the confirmation step on your own.
Ask the association to add your new email address to your contact record first. Once that address is on file, signing in with it connects you automatically, just as it would have if you had used that address from the start, with no confirmation email involved.
If the association cannot add the address either, contact them so they can ask Rhythm Support for help. Support can set you up with a new account under your new email and merge it with your existing record, so your history is not lost. In some cases, Support corrects your existing sign-in record directly. If that happens, you will likely need to reset your password using the new address before you can sign in with it.
Connect Your New Sign-In to Your Existing Record
- Sign up or sign in with the new email address you want to use going forward. If your association supports signing in with Google, you can use that here too. Because your association does not have a record with that address yet, the Portal will not recognize you automatically.
- Enter the email address you believe is on your existing record. This option appears in different places on different association Portals, so check your account or profile settings, look for it during sign-up, or ask the association if you cannot find it.
- Rhythm looks for a contact record with that address. If no record has it, the Portal tells you the address could not be found. Try another address, or continue as a new sign-up if you are sure no record exists. If your association has more than one record for you, such as records from before and after a past name or job change, make sure you confirm the right one. Confirming the wrong record connects your new sign-in to someone else's history instead of yours.
- If a record has that address, Rhythm sends a confirmation email to it so the person with access to that inbox can approve connecting it to your new sign-in.
Tip
If the address you are signing up with is different from the address on your existing record, you may need to verify twice: once for the new sign-in and again through the confirmation email described below. Complete both verifications to connect your sign-in. You only need to do this once.
Result
The email arrives at the address you entered, not at your new sign-in address. It asks the recipient to confirm the request and states that the confirmation link expires 24 hours after it was sent.
Confirm the Request
Your new sign-in exists after you create it, but it is not connected to a contact record until you finish this step. Do not assume the process is complete just because you were able to create the sign-in.
- Open the email at the address you entered.
- Follow the confirmation link within 24 hours of when it was sent.
Result
Your new sign-in is connected to that contact record. The next time you sign in, the Portal recognizes you as that contact, with your existing details, roles, and history intact.
This connects your sign-in once. If you are sent back to search for your record again after verifying, or you see an access-denied message instead of landing in your account, do not repeat the verification step. Contact the association instead.
Why the Confirmation Goes to the Other Address
The confirmation goes to the address you entered because that is the address on the existing record. This proves the request is genuine: only someone who can read mail at the address on file can complete the connection. If you enter someone else's address by mistake, or type the address incorrectly, that person receives the confirmation instead of you, and nothing connects to your sign-in unless they act on it.
If the Confirmation Link Expires
The confirmation link stops working 24 hours after it is sent, whether or not anyone uses it. If the link expires unused, start the request again from the beginning and confirm the new link promptly. This 24-hour window is not unique to this process; any Portal verification link expires the same way if you wait too long. An expired link does not lock you out permanently because starting the request again works.
What Staff See on the Contact Record
Association staff can see a contact's sign-in history on the Security tab of the contact record, including the email address used for a Google or other social sign-in. Staff can also use this tab to look up the address tied to an unfinished sign-up if the contact record's own email field is still blank.
A login shown there is a historical record, not a live setting. Staff cannot remove or hide one, even if it was created with the wrong email address, is no longer in use, or was deleted from the sign-in system itself. If a login was connected to the wrong contact and later corrected, the Security tab keeps showing the earlier email until the right person signs in and connects their own login. Even then, the earlier address stays on the tab as history instead of disappearing. If a contact has more than one login connected to it, the Security tab lists every email or username involved, not just the most recent one.
Clicking Verify Email on this tab can show a success message before the tab's own verified status updates. If that happens, check back after a few minutes before assuming the verification failed.
Common Problems
"The address could not be found." No contact record has the address you entered. Double-check the spelling, or confirm with the association which address is on file for you.
The error message doesn't explain what went wrong. Some verification-related errors do not explain the exact cause. If you see a generic error, check the other entries in this list first, and contact the association if none of them match what you are seeing.
The confirmation email never arrived. Check the inbox for the address you entered, not your new sign-in address, because the message always goes to the address on file. Check spam or junk folders too. A common cause is the recipient's email provider, or IT-managed mail filters, blocking messages from Rhythm's sending address; ask them to safelist it. If you use more than one email address, make sure you are checking the one actually on file rather than the one you expect to be correct. If the email still does not arrive, try the request again. The association can also ask Rhythm Support to confirm the message was sent and check whether your Rhythm account's own email delivery settings are working correctly. Contact the association if the problem continues.
Sign-up failed with a work email address, but succeeded with a personal one. Some organizations have reported that sign-up fails with a work address but succeeds with a personal address, even when the Portal uses a standard sign-up form instead of a social sign-in option. This is not documented or supported behavior, and it appears limited to first-time account creation rather than the reconnection process described above. If it happens to you, use a different address to get unstuck rather than relying on this behavior, and mention it to the association if it happens consistently.
The link did not seem to work. It has likely expired. Start a new request and confirm the new link within 24 hours. If entering an incorrect password interrupted the process, verify your email first and then try signing in again instead of repeatedly retrying the password. If a link consistently fails even when you use it promptly, ask the association to contact Rhythm Support. In some cases, verification can be completed with a numeric code instead of the link.
You'd rather not go through this yourself. Association staff can create the new sign-in for you if needed. If they do, they need to give you the resulting credentials, and you should change the password the first time you sign in with them.
Your new sign-in email is already tied to another login. An email address becomes claimed as soon as it is used to sign in, even if that happened by mistake, on the wrong account, or during an earlier sign-up attempt that never finished. This can block you before you finish signing up, not only when you reconnect an existing sign-in. If you are sure the address should be yours and it is blocking you, contact the association. They can ask Rhythm Support to remove the incorrect association without deleting anyone's account. Once the address is cleared, it is free for you to use, and creating your sign-in should work normally. Neither you nor association staff can clear this kind of conflict directly; it currently has to go through Rhythm Support.
Your sign-in ended up connected to the wrong contact record, or a login already exists for the wrong person. A sign-in linked to the wrong record cannot be transferred or reassigned to the correct one directly by you, association staff, or Rhythm Support. Contact the association so they can ask Support to remove the incorrect sign-in. Then go through account setup again with the same email and connect it to the right record, as described above. Your existing details, roles, and history stay with that correct record once you do. This is also the fix if you set up an account with the wrong email address entirely: Support removes the mistaken sign-in so you can register again with the correct one. If two people have been sharing one sign-in and need separate access, ask the association to update the name and email on the record that will keep using the current sign-in before creating the second person's new one. This helps prevent Rhythm from flagging the older record as a possible duplicate during setup.
Support corrected your sign-in, but you still can't get in. Try resetting your password again using the address you now want to use, not the old one, because a stale password rarely carries over correctly. A correction like this can also take a short time to show up fully in Rhythm, so try again shortly if it does not seem to have taken effect right away. Occasionally, the real cause is an old or duplicate sign-in identity for the same email. Support may need to remove it before your sign-in works the way it should. You may also have a profile under a different or secondary address, which usually needs removing as a last step. If you are sure the email is correct and you are still stuck, the most reliable next step is asking the association to have Support check exactly which identity is tied to that address before trying anything else.