how to recover password? "drop administrator's table?"

kozmo

Howdy. My admin password (or any other password) is not working. There is no captcha on my login page so I'm following directions in the troubleshoot guide. I'm to the point of this (from the troubleshoot guide):

"If you are still having problems after following that advice you will have to enable some debugging to allow the developers to observe what is happening ...
"Now drop your administrator's table as described in the referenced troubleshooting article."

What is meant by "drop your administrator's table?" Does that mean delete it? If so, where is it? What's the file name?

Or what "referenced troubleshooting article" is being referred to? I see no article being referenced in this part of the guide.

thanks much / Kozmo

Mark R

http://www.zenphoto.org/news/troubleshooting-guide#troubleshooting-security
Item number 6

It means that you have to get rid of the administrators table inside of your database using a tool such as phpMyAdmin or whatever you use to administer your databases.

I'll guess that at that point when you run setup it won't ask you for your login anymore. Be aware that doing this will destroy all the other accounts in there as well. You may want to make a backup of that table before trying this then restoring the other accounts back to the database when you restore the master admin account. I haven't tried this but I would think it would work to export all the data except your master admin account from the old table and import it back in to the new one.

luck...

acrylian

1) The administrators table in your database. Ask your host how to access that.
2) http://www.zenphoto.org/news/troubleshooting-guide#troubleshooting-security
("I forgot my admin password, now what do I do?")

kozmo

@Mark R; thanks for the thorough and helpful advice. Your instructions good for an unexperienced user like me.

One question though. How do I run setup? I see nothing in ZenPhoto itself. I wend to admin and tried to enter a new user but, of course, no database exists.

Do I just reinstall ZenPhoto? I started doing this and, under advanced options, it asks if I want to create a new database. Do you know if that's going to over-write all of the databases? If I choose to not create a new database, it wants to know my user name and password, which, of course, no longer exist.

thanks again
K

kozmo

@Mark R
Maybe I found it. I see a file <site>/<zenphoto folder>zp-core/setup.php.

Is that what I run? There are a bunch of other setup php's there; setup-functions, setup-sqlforms, setup-setmod, and a bunch more.

sbillard

Restoring the accounts from the database may or may not work depending on other things, mostly when the original accounts were created. Zenphoto hashes the password for storage and the hash algorithm may have changed. The "new modern" algorithm is instituted when the administrator table is created since we "know" that there are no stored password hashes using the old algorithm.

Best always to have available the alternative reset options--email address, and on v1.4.2, password challenge/response.

sbillard

Do I just reinstall ZenPhoto? I started doing this and, under advanced options, it asks if I want to create a new database. Do you know if that's going to over-write all of the databases? If I choose to not create a new database, it wants to know my user name and password, which, of course, no longer exist.

Since there is no such option for Zenphoto I can only assume that you are making use of a third party installer. If you frequent the forum much you will know that theses installers are know to cause problems.

The only method of installing Zenphoto that we know works and can be supported is described here http://www.zenphoto.org/news/installation-and-upgrading

That does not mean that the third party installers don't provide useful capabilities, it is just that if they go wrong you will have to ask their authors for help as we have no clue as to what they do behind the skins. Sadly, password problems seems one of the topics that continually comes up associated with these installers.

Mark R

As sbillard said if you are using some third party script to install than all bets are off. You are best just running setup yourself by pointing your browser at the setup.php file (or the base of your zenphoto install) and rebuilding the info that zenphoto needs by completing that script.

As for your question about the username and password in relation to not creating a new db my "best guess" would be that it wants your db user and db password. Of course it is just a guess.
When in doubt, back up your db and give it a run. That way at the very least you can get back to where you were.
The setup script that comes with zenphoto works quite well to get you up and running. The only real thing you need to do in your case is to get rid of the administrator table and then create your new admin account when zenphoto prompts you for it. Oh, and keep your password somewhere safe so you don't have to do this again. :P

kozmo

thanks sbillard and Mark. I've made progress; by reversing. I restored a backup version and it seems to work ok. You're right, I'm using a 3rd party to install, simplescripts. I wasn't aware there was another way. When I get a chance, I'll reinstall it directly from zenphoto. For now it's working.

Oh, and Mark, I do keep a good record of passwords. The problem wasn't that I didn't have it; none (either admin or any of the galleries) of them worked.

I really appreciate your help as I stumble through these things
Kozmo

sbillard

Be aware that this password problem sometimes occurs when moving from a Simplescripts install to a "normal" one. So, as long as Simplescripts works for you, keep using it.

I am beginning to suspect that its problem is that it does not do release to release migrations correctly.

Mark R

Glad to hear everything went well Kozmo.
Of course I was joking with you about the pw's. I wasn't even sure you needed to update any other accounts but I'm happy to hear that the update of the table worked out.
Now to upgrade myself to 1.4.2 and hope all goes smoothly.