Why Won’t My Password Work?

We've all at one time or another entered a password into a site only to be told the password is wrong. Let's explore all of the reasons why this can happen and learn what to do next.

Comments: 14 Responses to “Why Won’t My Password Work?”

    Hank Lipovski
    3 years ago

    How does one set up a transfer of a correct password from one device - (iPad) to another device - (iPhone) when the second device has an erroneous password?

    Martin
    3 years ago

    What do we have to do to secure our passwords?
    A combination of eye recognition, Fingerprint, and DNA.

    3 years ago

    Hank: Where are you storing your passwords now? If you are using Safari/iCloud then there should only be one password stored and both systems have it.

    BTP
    3 years ago

    Personal screw-ups aside, I've wondered if some sites reject passwords to force you to get a new password. The reason for this would be to enhance security. Could this be a possibility? I've run into this more than I would like and I just change my password. In some cases, that seems to work for months, or even a few years, then the problem occurs again.

    3 years ago

    BTP: Some will force you to change your password every so often. The proper way to do that would be to tell you exactly why they want to change your password. Anything else would be the wrong way to go about it. And actually it really isn't a good idea. If you have a strong unique password then changing it to another strong unique password shouldn't make any difference. The best way to increase security from there is some form of two-factor.

    BartP
    3 years ago

    Gary, another PW problem is when Keychain and either 1Passsword or Google PW are in conflict with each other. I find that especially Keychain and 1Password come up whenever I log into a site. Neither one knows what the other is doing and I often have issues where one overrides the other, uses the wrong PW and it ends up requiring a PW reset. There is a fight between the site's suggestion and that of Keychain and 1Password and in the end different PW's are saved by the site, Keychain and 1PW.

    3 years ago

    BartP: When that happens, it is worth it to manually look at each password saved and correct the one that is wrong. With 1Password you can change your settings so it won't appear unless you request it on the web page.

    MikeB
    3 years ago

    I use Apple's password manager with Safari. It works well almost all of the time, with the exception of when I do a password reset on a site. Sometimes the link for a password reset comes back and the new screen just has a space to enter a new password (usually twice). If there's not a user name on that same screen as part of the reset process, Apple's password manager sometimes creates a new user name/password combo for that site with blank as the user name.

    Marcia Pittleman
    3 years ago

    I have a similar issue with typing in my phone number to sign up for a text promotion. Some sites give me an error message no matter how I type in my one & only phone. Is there a problem with my settings?

    Timothy Michael Ricke
    3 years ago

    I purchased a new MacBook Air with M1 chip, Monterey 12.1 and Safari Version 15.2. My passwords are stored within Safari. They no longer fill in at sites and I have to copy and paste password or type it in. How do I get back to where I was? Thank you, Gary.

    3 years ago

    Marcia: That sounds like a problem with that website. Contact their support.

    3 years ago

    Timothy: Safari, Preferences, Passwords, Autofill.

    Johan-Martijn Flaton
    3 years ago

    It can irritate me to no end that Apple (and others) still refuses to give the choice to type one's password with visible characters, as if one is surrounded all the time by a whole bunch of imaginary people with pen & paper each time a password must be filled in. Leave that choice to the user (and reinstate the invisibility automatically after one is logging out... 2 extra lines of code, that's all!

    JC
    3 years ago

    Johan-Martijn Flaton, well said!

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