How to retrieve old nickname in Game center?

I just got off the phone with apple after being bounced around departments for almost and hour and they finally came up with "Sorry, there is nothing we can do." They said there are always some glitches with updates and they try to fix them before hand but they can't do anything and don't have a solution. So incredibly frustrating.

It would help if there was some place to type in your original Game Center id then see what email was associated with it. I believe this would help some people.

That would be nice, or an actual Game Center site, like I said earlier where they would hopefully have their own tech/support center. The issue, though, is that I know what email is associated with my old account id. I only have the one email add that I use, I'm thinking my account is just floating around out there ever since I transitioned ios.

Did you manage to find a solution to this problem? I upgraded my i-pad software last night and can't get into my old Game Center account. I don't remember what my old ID was and set-up an incorrect new ID. I see many similar problems but where can I see the solutions? Would appreciate any help. Tx

Same problem here -- just updated my son's iTouch this morning....I remember the username for the Game Center, but it's telling me that it isn't connected to his current e-mail. He lost all his progress in Smurf Village -- a game where he has spent money from gift cards for smurfberries. I don't want him to have to start completely over. I really hope that someone from Apple is able to help us get our user accounts back. Otherwise it isn't likely that any of us will ever spend another dime for a game from Apple.

Guys my girlfriend has just fixed this problem for me, you go into game centre, go into view account, then click on your (incorrect) nickname and type in the correct one. All of they game data and ect came right back!!!

Wait, so I have to make an incorrect nickname first? Because ever since it kept saying my old nickname was in use, I've been a little iffy to make a new one. I was afraid it'd just lose my old stuff, so I haven't used game center at all.

Nope, just tried and it still wouldn't let me change the nickname. Still says it's in use. But now I have a new account...all my game saves/achievements are still missing.

I finally got this sorted on my end. When I originally created my gamecenter account I had mistyped my apple ID (I use an e-mail) as xxxxx@xxx.con rather than xxxxx@xxx.com. I only found this out because I had mistyped my apple ID this way recently and decided to try it out in gamecenter. During the gamecenter creation I must have entered my correct e-mail at some point because I have a validation e-mail and a friend request from the same time going to my correct e-mail account. What makes this so frustrating is nowhere in either of those e-mails is my Apple ID, so there is no way to know it was misspelled or how it was misspelled except through trial and error. Even iforgot.apple.com doesn't work unless I use the incorrect e-mail address.

If your still having problems I'd recommend trying common misspellings of your apple ID. You can test this by trying to reset the password to misspelled apple IDs, if you can that ID exists and might be your gamecenter login.

The problem is that your situation is the rare exception. Many of us haven't made typos in or accounts, whether it's in our email or nickname. This happened once we all updated to ios 5, and I highly doubt every person on Game Center managed to type in the wrong email. I made my account using the same email add as my apple id for simplicity's sake but tried my other emails just in case, so far nothing's worked.

Glad you figured out your issue, though. I kind of just keep playing Tiny Towers since it luckily backed up onto my comp and saves on my iPad.

Maybe it's rare, and I was getting frustrated seeing other people resolve their situation by remembering that they had used a different Apple ID when I know I've only ever used one Apple ID (the e-mail address) but with no ability to reverse search from your nickname to your Apple ID there is no way to know for sure that you don't have a typo in the Apple ID your nickname is tied to. iOS 5 screwed all this up for me because it was the first time I was forced to relog into gamecenter, before that the phone just had my mistyped Apple ID stored and I never had a reason to retype it. Your Apple ID, even if it's an e-mail address, can be different than the e-mail that Apple uses to verify and communicate with you, so it's very possible, like in my situation, that you would never know there's a problem with your Apple ID until your forced to relog into gamecenter. So now, I have two Apple IDs, my real one with .com at the end that I use for updating apps, etc., and my gamecenter one with .con that I had no idea existed until I tested it this morning. My point is, until you had to relog into gamecenter with an Apple ID (and in my case as I would guess a lot of cases, this wasn't until I updated to OS5) there was no way to know if you had a typo in that gamecenter-associated Apple ID, and without Apple allowing us to find an Apple ID from a gamecenter nickname, there's no way to be sure.

And yea, thankfully Tiny Tower backs up localy, although I was getting really tired of the reminders that I wasn't logged in as my nickname.

Yeah, I understand the Apple ID and Game Center IDs aren't the same, I made them the same just so I wouldn't have to remember so many account logins. The thing is that I have GC on both my ipad and ipod devices and one of my devices I shared with family so I did actually log in and out of GC. And after the ios update, I logged in normally but asked me to make a nickname. Kind of like I'd registered but never logged in before. Where as when I tried different emails, it kept giving me the "Incorrect ID or password" notification. =\

Just kind of sad because I did have other games on GC, but at least the one I'm most addicted to (Tiny Tower) still works. And I agree with you on the reverse search, many of us just want to see what email is attached to our old account. But GC doesn't have any real website other than a small page on Apple's main site...trying to go through their normal support system is slow.

Finally got this sorted out. Here's what worked for me:

Instead of using my Apple ID in the username field, I signed in with my original Game Center Nickname as the username. Then I put in my Apple ID password in the password field. All my achievements are back.

After upgrading to IOS 5, Game Center wanted me to sign in again, and by default put my Apple ID in the username field. This is what was throwing me. Substitute the Apple ID for the Nickname, and you may be in business.

Once more for clarity. Instead of signing in with:

Apple ID

password

sign in with

Nickname

password

Best of luck!

I can remember my old nickname but im not sure which email i used. it always used to have me sign in but one day it randomly all disappeared and i cant remeber what email i used. i tried to make a new one but it just said the nickname was in use and i couldnt get onto it. i've lost everything and is there anyway i can find out what email i used?

None of the offered solutions have worked for me.

After upgrading to iOS 5, Game Center tells me my old nickname is taken, and if I try to create a new nickname, all my games' achievements and progress is lost.