Mastodon Admin Login Issues

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1

What app is this about, and its version: Mastodon 4.4.5
What YunoHost version are you running: 12.1.27
What type of hardware are you using: VPS bought online

Describe your issue

I can log in to my Mastodon server using one of the admin’s passwords, but when I try to change account details or add two-factor authentication, it says the password is incorrect, even though I’ve copied and pasted it, so I know it’s the same one.

I’m fairly new to all this, but I tried to change the password via SSH using Terminal and every command I’ve tried gets the same response of "No such file or directory

Would anyone be able to help?

Thanks in advance. :slight_smile:

Share relevant logs or error messages

I can log in to my Mastodon server using one of the admin’s passwords, but when I try to change account details or add two-factor authentication, it says the password is incorrect, even though I’ve copied and pasted it, so I know it’s the same one.

I’m fairly new to all this, but I tried to change the password via SSH using Terminal and every command I’ve tried gets the same response of "No such file or directory

Would anyone be able to help?

Thanks in advance. :slight_smile:

2

I think you can’t change the account information because these are LDAP accounts. However, two-factor authentication should be possible. Have you tried with another user?

3

Yeah. Other admin accounts seem to work, just not the original one that was set up.

I’ve just remembered that I can’t access that account on SSH either. It says “Authentication failure” with any password I try.

4

=> Ok but only the user account chosen before the installation can administrate Mastodon. Its password cannot be changed on Mastodon, only through YunoHost webadmin or the YunoHost CLI (same for other users).
Other yunohost users, admins or not, are regular users in Mastodon.

What command did you run ?
Only change user’s passwords through webadmin ou yunohost cli.

6

I did try changing it via YunoHost but it still never seems to match although it logs in ok.

I tried a few that I found but one was “tootctl accounts modify iguadmin”.

By the sound of it would I be best to uninstall YunoHost and start again?

7

What do you mean exactly: you can’t log through ssh or you cannot change password in mastodon .

8

yunohost has its own cli : try yunohost --help to see available commands.
Change user’s password with webadmin or through cli with yunohost user update <username> -p <password>

9

Both. It always says that the password is wrong when I try to change account details in Mastodon or when I try to log in via SSH even though I can log in to Mastodon with it.

10

I tried that and got “bash: syntax error near unexpected token `ghfX’”

11

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This is the expected behaviour. If you want to change the admin’s password, change it with yunohost.

12

… did you remove < and > …?

13

I did

14

OK. Try with sudo and "" if there are special characters in your pwd.

15

I managed to do it but I still have the same original issue. I even tried reinstalling everything.

16

What do you mean ?

17

That I can log in to Mastodon with the password but I can’t save any account details in Mastodon or access SSH with it even though it is the same.

18

I can also access the root with the same password.

19

Can you share a screenshot ?

Modifying admin account without using YunoHost’s tools may cause issues.

20

Screenshot 2025-10-11 at 17.54.57
Screenshot 2025-10-11 at 17.54.57932×524 14.7 KB

21

For 2FA, try with regular user.