Device: Nothing Phone (3)
Nothing OS: 4.1
Build number: Metroid-B4.1-260624-1457-EEA
Hi all,
I see this thread already has several reports of the same “Account authorization error. Reset system time or try again later.” message in Essential Space, so adding my findings here in case it helps narrow down the cause. None of the usual workarounds (sign out/in, clearing cache, reinstalling, logging out of the Nothing account) fixed it permanently for me either.
To dig deeper, I used PCAPdroid (with AI assistance from Claude to walk through the setup) to inspect the network traffic coming from my device during the error. Here’s what I found:
My system time is correct and synced - the “reset system time” suggestion in the error message is not the actual cause.
The app uses certificate pinning on essential-space.nothingtech.link (the account/auth domain), so I couldn’t fully decrypt that traffic (expected, correct security behavior on Nothing’s part). By contrast, prod.essentialsearch.essential-nt.com (the search service) doesn’t use pinning and connects fine.
On connections to essential-space.nothingtech.link, I observed repeated, very short (~100 bytes sent / 88 bytes received) connection attempts to 15.252.67.223 that close within seconds - looks like the TLS handshake isn’t completing. This suggests a possible server-side issue during auth/token validation or refresh.
Timestamps when the error occurred (July 22, 2026, TR time):
- 02:45:05 - 02:46:41
- 03:00:44 - 03:12
Given this, and that several of us are hitting the same thing, I don’t think this is a device-side issue (time, network, DNS) - it looks more like a server-side problem with the token validation/refresh flow on essential-space.nothingtech.link.
Would be great if someone from Nothing could take a look, since this has apparently been reported in this community for close to a year now.
Update: Submitted this to Nothing Support with a duplicate account hypothesis
Quick follow-up on my earlier post about the “Account authorization error” in Essential Space.
I submitted a support ticket with the network analysis findings I shared here (certificate pinning on essential-space.nothingtech.link, repeated failed connection attempts to 15.252.67.223 during token validation). Support’s first reply was the standard steps (reset auto date/time, remove and re-add account) - I’d already tried both before opening the ticket, so I followed up.
While digging through an old bug report I had on hand, I noticed the sign-in flow goes through Google Sign-In (com.google.android.gms.auth.api.signin). That reminded me of something: at one point while troubleshooting, I ended up signing in/registering with the same email through two different methods - both “Sign in with Google” and “Sign in with email.” I’ve now flagged to support that this may have created a conflicting/duplicate account record server-side, tied to two different auth providers for the same email - which would line up with the token validation failures I observed.
Also spotted two more backend domains in my traffic analysis besides essential-space.nothingtech.link: dc-api.nothingtech.link and shared-widgets-backend.nothingtech.link.
Still waiting on a substantive reply. Posting this here in case it helps anyone else troubleshooting the same error, or in case someone from Nothing sees this thread and can take a look at the duplicate-account angle.
