← All articles
Passwords · Diagnosis
«I’m sure this is the password but it won’t let me in»: the real causes
If you are convinced that is the password, trust yourself: in a great many cases you are right and what fails is a tiny detail. Go through this list before writing the case off, because half the time the answer is here.
The eight causes, by frequency
- The keyboard layout. If you typed the password on a Spanish keyboard and now use an English one, the symbols are not where you think. I cover it fully in my keyboard layout changed.
- Caps lock, or an initial capital the system added by itself that you can’t see.
- A trailing space. Invisible, extremely common, especially when copying and pasting.
- Accents or the letter ñ that your current keyboard doesn’t produce the same way. See I used accents or ñ.
- It’s a different, similar password. Your passwords resemble each other; memory blends two versions.
- The file isn’t the one you think. You are opening a copy from another era with another password.
- The wallet is asking for something else. Some have two separate passwords: one to open and one to send.
- The password is right but the wallet is empty, and you read «won’t let me in» as «my money isn’t there». Those are different problems.
The number one cause on this list is real and is always underestimated. If your password contained an at sign, an underscore or any symbol, and you have changed computer, system or keyboard language, it is quite possible you are typing a different character from the one you typed back then.
How to check without losing your mind
- Type the password in an ordinary text editor, where you can see it, and check it character by character. Then copy it carefully.
- Check there is no trailing space by selecting the text: it shows.
- Try the obvious variants: with and without an initial capital, with and without the final number, with and without the symbol.
- If you have several copies of the file, try the password on all of them: only one may be from the right period.
Don’t try fifty times by hand and give up. Desktop wallets don’t lock you out after failed attempts, but fatigue is real: you will end up convinced the password «wasn’t that one» when the problem was an accent. Write the variants on paper first and test them methodically.
If after all this it still won’t open, your case is an ordinary recovery with a very good starting point: you have an almost-correct password, which is the best raw material there is. Read it in I remember part of the password.