Resolved unable to change administrator password and email address

[JohnZ]

I am unable to change the root password....

I logged in as root administrator with password <passwordA>. The same password is not accepted when I try to change the password: "The old password is incorrect. Please try again.". This is of course impossible, because I just logged in with that password.

I went to SSH and tried this command which also did not help:
$ /usr/local/psa/bin/admin -p -passwd <passwordB>
That does not give errors, but I still cannot use <passwordB> to login. For login I need <passwordA>

I also tried to change the admin's email address in the profile page. The profile change was accepted, but when using the login-screen's password reset option /get_password.php we get the message (in German?) "Fehler: Identifikation fehlgeschlagen: Der/die angegebene Nutzername oder E-Mail-Adresse ist ungültig. Bitte versuchen Sie es erneut."

I think this happened after upgrading from Plesk (I think it was originally version 12) which means this problem has been in our system since ages.

Is there any other way that I can try?

 

[Brujo]

Perhaps try this under onyx:

# plesk bin admin --set-admin-password -passwd '*****'

Please see the knowledgebase entry for details: How to retrieve/reset a password of the "admin" user in Plesk for Linux

 

[JohnZ]

Thanks @Brujo, but that did not work. Same result as with the ssh command I used.

Where are these passwords stored, is there a place in the database? Could I delete it and then retry the ssh command?

 

[GerdSchrewe]

When reinstalling the operating system and Plesk, the Plesk admin password is identical to the root password, at least for my provider (Strato V-Server).
So to change the admin password in Plesk, the root password is "the old Plesk password". Maybe this is the reason?

 

[JohnZ]

I asked my manager to test that (I do not have the provider's original passwords) and they said all previous passwords did not work either.

So the search continues, I am slowly running out of options. Any suggestion is welcome.

 

[JohnZ]

It was solved.
The Plesk root password could to be set in the provider's (Virtuozzo) control panel. Until now, nobody in our organization knew of the existence of that control panel.

Thank you all for helping out.