Help with password/login

[CherylCuzco]

Hi,

I paid someone to set up my website and blog. I went in to change the password and username from their's to mine and have been blocked out.

I have read some of the info on the forum regarding this problem, but would like some step by step, layman terms on how to resolve it. How may you help?

Thanks

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

How and where have you changed the password? Which serendipity version are you using?

Regards,
Garvin

[CherylCuzco]

When I went to blog adminstrator and typed in the username and password there was a link to changing the password. Which I did. Then when I tried to log back in to blog administrator immediately after the change it came up that the new username and password were invalid. So, I tried the old one an that too did not work.

At the bottom of the blog page it says the blog is Powered by Serendipity 1.3.1 and PHP 5.2.5.

Is any of this information useful?

Thanks,

Cheryl

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Are you talking of a "Forgot Password" type link?

Serendipity itself has no link to change your password, this is why I'm wondering how you changed it. Serendipity only allows you to change the password when you go to "personal preferences" and there, change the password on the page where you also see all other settings. There you have to enter the old password as well for security reasons.

So maybe the one who built your website created a custom version for changing the password that might not properly work?

If you have access to a tool like phpMyAdmin, you could check out the serendipity_authors database table and there edit the row with your username, and simply enter a new password (MD5 encoded).

Regards,
Garvin

[CherylCuzco]

No, it was never "forgot password" I think it was the personal preferences link where I made the changes after I logged on to blog administrator using the username and password.

Hard to remember right now as I've spent hours trying to get back into the blog site.

I don't think that the webdesigner did anything to make something special. Maybe. He certainly put in an email that I could go onto the site and change my preferences and that he simply set it up with his name.

I know that he's not in the picture anymore and really don't know where he is. If so, how does one change it? Or maybe I should have this program deleted and use something else if this is going to be a megillah?

When and how does one buy the software to Serendipity? Can I found out how the software was set up on my web page? At what point did money exchange hands in order to install this?

[Don Chambers]

Serendipity itself is a free, open source application. Many website hosting providers provide easy access to it, or it can be directly installed by anyone if they have ftp access to their hosting account.

Garvin asked earlier if you have database access using a tool such as phpMyAdmin. Do you?

If so, you can open the correct table within the database, which is serendipity_authors (unless a different prefix was used for table names). Each row in that table will correspond to a user... it will contain, among other values, a user name and a password. The password is stored as an MD5 hash.

You can directly enter whatever you want in that password field, as long as it too is an MD5 hash. You can use a MD5 hash generator to create one from any word. Here is a site that can do so: http://www.zappersoftware.com/Help/md5.php

For instance, if I enter "cheryl" (without quotes), it will create the MD5 hash equivalent of that as "abaebd4b81a6f982ccdfc52dda1823dd" (again, without quotes). Once you have saved your changes, you should be able to log in.

[judebert]

When I went to blog adminstrator and typed in the username and password there was a link to changing the password.

Serendipity uses a form to change the password. Were you seeing a link?

Additionally, there's a known bug in Firefox 3.0 that automatically inserts passwords into some fields. Maybe it came into play here.

We'd love to get you set up and running. The method Don describes will work to change your password, if you have access to the database. Then we can get a more detailed description of what you're trying to accomplish, and provide detailed instructions.