Can't change password

[Phill]

When attempting to change my password since update to 14.04, the Change button is disabled.

The UI claims my password is "Not good enough", probably because it's not complex according to it's rules. Choosing a different password with difference characters seems to work cause this to change and the button enables.

While it's perfectly reasonable and useful to for the OS to provide feedback on its opinion of password quality, it is my view that it's not appropriate for the a personal computer to over-rule the decisions of its user with respect to password choices. For this reason, and that it's a change in behaviour since the previous version, I think this should be treated as a bug.

It's possible to change the password with "passwd".

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity-control-center 14.04.3+14.04.20140410-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.47-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sat May 10 16:32:51 2014
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/unity-control-center
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-05-07 (367 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity-control-center
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-04-28 (12 days ago)
usr_lib_unity-control-center:
 activity-log-manager 0.9.7-0ubuntu14
 deja-dup 30.0-0ubuntu4
 gnome-control-center 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu56.1

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[John Rose (johnaaronrose)]

It's even worse now than when reported. Trying passwords containing upper case character(s), lower case character(s), numbers & special character such as ! does not enable the Change button. Also, using sudo passwd userid allows me to change the password from a non-passworded account but does not actually change it (i.e. after Restart, still shows 'Login' box after selecting relevant user - clicking on this box gives login!

[schamane (schamane)]

Observed the same, couldn't create/add a new user. The hint for the strength switches directly from "too short" to "not good enough" and stays there no matter how complex or long the password is.

@johnaaronsore: Set password with `passwd` (as you did) and remove the user from the group nopasswdlogin, e.g. with `sudo gpasswd -d $USER nopasswdlogin`

[Ryan Murray (ubuntu-hz)]

This is caused by libpam-pwquality using the cracklib defaults for the dictionary file, and not having cracklib-runtime installed with the default cracklib dictionary of /usr/share/dict/cracklib-small. libpam-pwquality should probably Depends: on cracklib-runtime

[Dave Coleman (davetcoleman)]

This is a terrible bug, as I type my password it enabled the Change button, meaning its good enough. But as I finish typing my password the button disabled again and says the password "Is not good enough". Its essentially telling me the password is too long!

[Andrew Schulman (andrex)]

For me no matter what password I enter in the password change dialog, even if the strength meter says "Strong", the "Change" button is always disabled. So this dialog is completely broken for me.

[Steven Colby (steven-w-colby)]

The same thing happens with Ubuntu 16.04 - the change password dialog still says "Not good enough". Look, this is ridiculous! I'm fine with the O/S informing me that in its opinion my password is not cryptographically strong, but really it's my decision, not the GUI's decision.

[Neil Broadley (scaine)]

16.04, latest LTS, but just ran into this bug. The strength meter says "Strong", but the "Change" button remains greyed out. The only way to change your password on this LTS, ridiculously, is to use a terminal!