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I have read and tried everything that I can find and I am still having issues logging in. I have Ubuntu 11.10 that I have put on my machine a couple of weeks ago and I still cannot log in. It says invalid password.

So I have tried to reboot and reset. I have even tried to remount.

What am I doing wrong? I am a beginner trying to learn and I am not sure why I can not sign in.

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    Hopefully, you are aware that passwords must be entered exactly the way you first entered it when installing, including capitalization (in other words, "mypassword" is not the same as "Mypassword". Jul 16, 2012 at 5:00
  • Try recovering password through here, If you want to recover password , do edit your question.
    – atenz
    Jul 16, 2012 at 5:09
  • What do you mean by "remount"? Also, when you say "reset", I've assumed you mean you've followed a procedure to reset your password to something new...but if that's not what you mean, please edit your question to clarify what it is you do mean. Jul 16, 2012 at 5:25
  • I followed directions to reset my password, but it is giving me an "Authentication token manipulation error". I am only able to log in as a guest. The link I used is...blogs.bu.edu/mhirsch/2012/02/…
    – Novak
    Jul 16, 2012 at 5:27
  • @Novak If you get Authentication token manipulation error when changing your password in recovery mode and you cannot fix it with mount -o remount,rw /, changing the password by chrooting from a live environment will still almost always work. I strongly recommend trying that. Jul 16, 2012 at 17:22

1 Answer 1

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You said you've reset the password and the problem still occurs, so presumably the problem isn't that you're entering it incorrectly. A few possible causes come to mind:

  • Maybe you are not using the right keyboard layout when entering your password. You can choose your keyboard layout at the graphical login screen by clicking the keyboard icon in the bar at the top. A drop-down menu will come up, showing the available keyboard layouts. (There might just be one, but if you have more than one set up, you can select between them.)

  • Maybe your password contains unusual characters that are not being handled properly. If your password contains characters other than upper and lower case letters, numbers, and punctuation present on US-English keyboards (~!@#$%^&*()_+-=[]\{}|;':"<>?,./`), try resetting the password again, this time to something limited to those characters. (You don't have to use all those types of characters if you don't want to, though your password should be long or complex enough that it's very hard to guess.)

  • Maybe something is going wrong when you reset your password. If you edit your question to include a detailed description of how you're resetting your password, a link to the procedure you are following to do so, or both, then it may be possible to assess this.

    Furthermore, if it turns out you mean something else by "reset" than resetting your password, then that is very relevant. In that case, you should reset your password using one of these methods or (as suggested by tijybba), this method.


If you get Authentication token manipulation error when changing your password in recovery mode and you cannot fix it with mount -o remount,rw /, changing the password by chrooting from a live environment will still almost always work. I strongly recommend trying that.

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  • I tried those and I am not getting anywhere. When I installed Ubuntu I created a name,computer's name, user name and password. I do not have any different names.
    – Novak
    Jul 16, 2012 at 5:35
  • I have done each of those methods again and it will not let me change the password. What is the password that I made upon setup for?
    – Novak
    Jul 16, 2012 at 5:53
  • When I type <mount -o rw,remount /> I get 84.132857] EXT4-fs (sda1): re-mounted. Opts: errors =remount-ro
    – Novak
    Jul 16, 2012 at 5:59
  • @Novak The password you created initially is the one you log in with. It is strange if it is not working. You said you did all these methods. Can you do this method again, but add all the text from the Terminal to your question? (You should be able to connect to the Internet from the live CD/DVD/USB system and access Ask Ubuntu. You can select all the text in the Terminal when the procedure is done, paste it into your question, and format it with the <$> editing tool.) Jul 16, 2012 at 13:04

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