Random Characters Displayed When Recovering Passwords

[Chris]

Random Characters or "Decryption Failed" Message Displayed When Recovering Passwords

Revision: 1.3
Date: 10/29/2008

Problem

When you attempt to recover passwords via the web interface for Enterprise / Random Password Manager, the process is successful but the passwordsis displayed with a message that says "Decryption Failed" or appear as squares and other characters such as:



Cause

This occurs because the tool's encryption settings have been changed after the website has been deployed, and the website has not been updated with the new encryption settings.

Resolution

Update the website encryption settings with the current options anytime the encryption settings are changed. Close any open browsers you have open to the password recovery website.

From the Win32 console do the following:

1. Navigate to SETTINGS | MANAGE WEB APPLICATION | MANAGE WEB APPLICATION INSTANCES
2. From the "Manage Web Application Instances" dialog, right-click on your website(s) from the list and choose to "Replace instance options with default web application options"
   
   
   
3. Choose YES when asked to "Confirm Overwrite Settings"
4. Click OK
5. The Web site's COM object will also need to be restarted. You can do this by waiting - typically 3 minutes of inactivity will allow the COM object to automatically shutdown, or you can open your computers Component Services and shut it down by hand. The objects are automatically started (if not already running) whenever the website is opened.
6. To go to component services to manually shutdown the COM object, type DCOMCNFG in the run menu
7. Expand Component Services | Computers | My Computer | COM+ Applications
8. Locate the RPMWeb com application (typically named RPMWebComApp) or the ERPM com application (PWCWebComApp), right-click on it and choose to "Shut Down"
9. Re-open your browser and attempt to recover your passwords. You will see that they are now readable.
   
   
   

Applies To:
Random Password Manager (RPM)
Enterprise Random Password Manager (ERPM)