New look, login denied

[cyberspoon]

Today I discovered that my blog suddenly looks totally different (new template) although I didn't change anything. What's worse: When I try to log in, I get this message:

You can no longer login with an old-style MD5 hash to prevent MD5-Hostage abuse. Please ask the Administrator to set you a new password.

Note: I am the administrator!

What happened? What can I do in order to be able to log in again?

Thanks so much in advance for your help!

[Timbalu]

Well first, there is no automatic update!

So someone must have done that for you. That indicates it is a Serendipity pre-installation by ISP, which was updated for all users, without check! If that is the case, change your ISP!!
Before you do so, you might ask them to help you, as we don't really know, which changes they have done to their pre-installed Serendipity Software. And in all these cases, we deny help, before this hasn't been cleared.

Possibly the pre-installed version has been some 1.4x or earlier and now is something between 1.5 and 1.6.2. The 1.5 version brought a change to password handling changing md5 to sha1, with a hash. Normally this is done automatically by the upgrade scripts, but some systems refused to do so, which sometimes stopped ALTERing the database table with a new column 'hashtype' or just "forgot" to update the table afterwards.

For those cases, in special for the last, you can create a manual fixlogin.php script file with this content to update you database.

Code: Select all

<?php
$username = "YOURusername";
$password = "YOURpassword";
include 'serendipity_config.inc.php';
echo serendipity_db_query("UPDATE {$serendipity['dbPrefix']}authors SET password = '" . serendipity_hash($password) . "', hashtype=1 WHERE username = '" . serendipity_db_escape_string($username) . "'");
echo "Password changed."; 

Adjust username and password to yours and save that file as fixlogin.php. Upload it to your Serendipty blog root directory and link you browser to it. [Note: Later, when all is done successfully, do not forget to erase that file again!]

---------------------------- Edit:

P.S. If that script errors, yelling a missing hashtype field, you would need to return to the Serendipity upgrade process, to run again and also ALTER the database.
Just for documentary, as an example HowTo:

To trigger the upgrade process again... simply edit the file serendipity_config_local.inc.php, change this line:

Code: Select all

    $serendipity['versionInstalled']  = '1.6.2';

to this:

Code: Select all

    $serendipity['versionInstalled']  = '1.4';

Save the file, and browse your page. It should trigger the upgrade process. After that, you may still need to run your fixlogin.php script. If the upgrade was successful, you should not get the "Unknown colum 'hashtype'.." error.

Note: Please adjust these example version numbers with your current, meaning previous - upgrade - version numbers.

[Don Chambers]

RVSiteBuilders by any chance?

[cyberspoon]

Thank you so much for your helpful replies. I will first turn to my ISP and see what they can do for me (nice lyric, isn't it?). But you will "hear" from me here again.

[cyberspoon]

As was to be expected, my ISP says they didn't do anything, so it's my fault, of course. So I reconverted my home page to good old HTML and deleted my Serendipity blog system.

[Timbalu]

I am not amused faced with reactions like this

This does not help people solving their issues, as you force answers to be short in time and thoughts, seeking, if someone has a problem that really wants to get solved!

Farewell!