Hi all,
I'm hoping someone can help me understand what happened here before I resort to a factory reset.
Setup:
- 3x HPE Networking Instant On 1930 48G 4SFP/SFP+ (JL685A)
- All three managed locally (local Web GUI, not cloud)
- All three were deployed together and configured the same way
- IMPORTANT: the three are NOT on the same firmware. One is newer (new green "HPE Networking" logo), the other two are older (orange "Aruba" logo). So this doesn't look like a bug specific to a single firmware version.
What happened:
After a sudden power outage, all three switches now reject my admin login with "Invalid username or password" on the local web interface. Same username (admin), same password I've used for months.
Why this is confusing:
- The admin password had NOT been changed for months. I successfully logged in with it about 20 days ago.
- The rest of the configuration is fully intact: the local IP addresses are still reachable, SNMP is still active and responding, and the hostname is retained. So the switches did NOT revert to factory defaults, and the config was clearly not wiped.
- Only the web login authentication is failing - everything else is up and running normally.
- It happened on all three units simultaneously, and across different firmware versions. That makes an independent/random flash corruption on each device seem unlikely.
- I'm certain I saved the config from the interface (I pressed Save). There had been no power outages for months and the system ran stably that way, so the settings - including the credentials - should have been written to the startup config.
What I've already tried:
- Entered the correct admin password repeatedly (browser autofill off, typed manually) - rejected.
- Also tried a blank password (username admin, password field empty) - that doesn't work either.
My questions:
1. Given that I'm confident the config was saved, that the three units run different firmware versions, and that the rest of the running config (IPs, VLANs, SNMP, hostname) survived the power outage - what could cause the admin login to be rejected on all three? Is it a known behavior for a power outage to affect only the user/authentication database while leaving the rest of the settings intact?
2. Is there any way to recover or reset ONLY the admin credentials without doing a full factory reset? I'd very much like to avoid reconfiguring all three switches from scratch, since I can't back up the config through the GUI while locked out.
3. Since SNMP RW is still active, is there any supported way to reset the admin password via SNMP or any other management path?
Firmware / software version: I can't see it from the GUI since I'm locked out; however the units are on different versions (one newer with the HPE logo, two older with the Aruba logo).
Any guidance appreciated - thanks!
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OGUZHAN OKTAY
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