Actually it's your host's fault. Which host are you using? Also please let me explain why it's your host's fault.
Do note that administrator password protection is NOT handled by Admin Tools, it is handled by the
web server (Apache). What we do with this feature is create a .htaccess and a .htpasswd file in the administrator folder of your site. The former says "this folder is password protected, look in .htpasswd for the password information" and the latter provides the username and password that needs to be used.
There are some caveats,
depending solely on your hosting provider.
If your hosting provider is using an ancient version of Apache or have disabled some of the advanced password hashing algorithms your password is truncated to 8 characters by Apache itself. This means that you should try using the first 8 characters of your password only. If that works please throw a rage fit to your host and demand that they fix their servers.
The other caveat is closely related to the previous item. Apache has different ways of hashing the passwords. The only methods which
may also be available to PHP are (in order of most to least preferred):
- Iterated and salted MD5 (APR1)
- SHA-1
- Traditional crypt
- Plain text
We always try to use APR-1 first. If something weird is going on (the host has disabled a lot of PHP's security related features) we then try SHA-1. If the host is really crap and has disabled SHA-1 in PHP we try to use traditional crypt (with the caveat about only the first 8 characters being used I explained above). In stupid cases where the host has disabled even that we try plain text. If the web server does not support the method we selected (something we have no way to detect) you will never be able to enter an acceptable password.
TL;DR: It is your host's fault, really. If they don't understand it's their fault choose a different host, preferably one run by people who know what they're doing.
Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Lead Developer and Director
🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
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