When restoring did you make sure to select 2 factor authentication when asked what kind of wallet it was?
Electrum autodetects 2FA seeds (even if you select "standard wallet")... and will still generate it as a 2FA wallet.
I'm thinking he may have 12 out of 24 words of the old 2fa seed mnemonic and he's restored the wallet as a standard wallet. Not sure whether that is possible but I want to rule it out anyway by asking him this question.
@zjt did you write down the 12 words seed of the old wallet during the wallet creation process or did you get them later from wallet menu > seed?