Guild Wars 2

I can’t log in because it won’t let me change my password (which you FORCED ME TO)!?

The fields just reset to blank without any indication as to why it won’t work.

Let me keep my old, working, password!

I understand completely that ArenaNet must be seen to be doing something about account security and such, and that making users change their passwords is a good way of doing this.
However, if one of their users has a memory problem (spoiler alert; I do) then forcing them to change the password on a regular basis to something within their guidelines, which are summed up pretty neatly here;
"Unavailable password. You or someone else has used it before, or it’s on a known list of passwords stolen from other games or websites. Please use a new, unique password for your Guild Wars 2 account. We recommend a new one made with four random, unrelated words, as shown in this comic strip. "
From this you can only assume that not only is it impossible to switch between several passwords that you can remember easily, but you also have to avoid the passwords of however many other users and their past passwords too.
That simply is insane. How long will any one of us be playing this game for? How often will this change be demanded? Every six months? Every six weeks? Even if it was every six years then there would be a period of at least a week in which I would have to be constantly having the password sent out if I ever learnt the new password. As for making a new password with four random, unrelated words well there’s a few I’ve yelled at the computer now that it’s finally stopped glitching through the new password demand, but I doubt they’d be original.
Simply put, security measures are good, alienating people because of a disability is illegal, at least where I live. I would be very grateful if the restrictions would be waved enough so that it is possible to cycle through passwords, even if it has to be not in a pattern or something. As long as it’s a password that I or someone else with this sort of problem can remember we should be allowed to keep it, rather that having kettlefrogpillowice or some such nonsense.

OH MY GOD I AM SO WITH YOU ON THIS. Seriously, the mandatory password change is the most annoying thing I have ever had to do. I’m running out of passwords to use and now I can’t even change it because I couldn’t remember what the old one was, because I had to change it to something I wouldn’t remember. I don’t even have a disability. I just don’t appreciate being told I HAVE to change my password. Make some money off $5 authenticators or something…

They are not making you change your password on a regular basis its a one time event for people who created their accounts before ANET created the blacklist on known passwords that hackers know.

@Saraphina Making people pay money to have authenticators is not a good business decision in my opinion as few would use the service and those that dont would contact support if thier account was compromised costing ANET money. In the long term its better to reduce the number of accounts compromised than deal with a large number of compromises.

A few months back I believed that because the new passwords the number of accounts compromises went from 1% to 0.1% or something similar meaning that it was very successful in making sure accounts stayed with their owners. The changes are noticeable in-game as there is a lot less bots and gold seller spam in the chats.

The point is. If I want my password to be ‘boobs’ then who the hell is going to stop me? Is it a ‘strong password’? No, it’s not. But that’s my choice.

Sure, you could use whatever compromised or “weak” password you want. But then the problem becomes that when such an account is then hacked, it not only creates a kitten-heap of extra work for the support staff, the account owner will mostly also be spreading the story far and wide to everyone who will listen of how “bad” ANet’s security is and how they “let” the account get hacked and and and

So that’s some of why the request to change your password if it is on the “compromised password/email combination” list or created before this list was in effect really is in the best interests of the whole community.

If memory is an issue for you, there are password vault programs available where you can store/manage your passwords for various sites behind one “master” password – which could then be the password that you don’t have trouble remembering. Here are some links to good free vaults, I hope they help.

http://keepass.info/
https://lastpass.com/index.php?fromwebsite=1

I honestly don’t mind changing my password. What I DO mind is having every alternate that I throw at the system (and I do have the sense to make all my passwords alphanumerical to increase the difficulty) they get REJECTED.

There is sucha thing as inconveniencing the user too much for the sake of security here folks. I paid 60 bucks for a game that’s not even letting me play it because your security measures have reached the point of being outright unreasonable!

Either let me pick my password or give me my money back!

So, its been a while since Ive logged in and it wants me to change my password, it took me a while to think of a good one I will remember with both numbers, letters, capitals and far over 8 characters. All it does is go blank and not tell me what is wrong with whatever is inserted into the blanks. Its not letting me log in because I need to change my password, so I cant play until this is resolved. Would greatly appreciate help in resolving this issue.

Thanks,
Fenrir Ulv

same problem most stupid system ive ever used. says to change then tells you someones already used it or you think its changed then still fails and you try repeat and get same thing.

yep ive just run into this and now I cant login since every password I try it seems to either say been used or just does nothing. what a complete pile of £$%£ and good example of how to ruin a game.

ArenaNet have asked us players to change the passwords on our accounts for our security. Many people are in the habit of using the same password for multiple accounts on the internet – email, forums, Facebook, etc. These passwords get known to hackers via malware and other methods, and then are used by the hackers to try to access your accounts. As such, ArenaNet have taken the step of creating a listing of all these known passwords, and add to that list any passwords in use on X date. They have then asked us players to create a new password for our accounts.

The system is able to go through that list at the time you are trying to change your password, and if your choice appears on that listing, the system will not allow you to use that password. It is being refused for your protection – because the new one you have chosed may have already been known to hackers – and ArenaNet are trying to help you to keep your account from being stolen.

When choosing a new password, my suggestion is to make it random – randomly mix letters and numbers, some of the letters in capitals, and add some symbols to it. The longer it is, the better. Use the lyrics from your favorite song, taking the first letter of each word, as the basis. Try making a few different variations before trying to change it, and write down your original as well as all variations, crossing off any that are not used.

There is also a great, FREE, program called KeePass (www.keepass.info). It is a password safe. You set up a database for yourself with one master password to log into KeePass, and from within you can store all the passwords to anything you do on the internet. You can also have it generate and remember a new, random password for you at any time that you can copy and then paste into the login screen for your application.

I want to change my password, due to many hacking attempts, but when ever I try it keeps saying I need at least 8 characters, even though I give it one over 10. So my question is, is this a bug, or whats going on? Please tell me what’s going on as soon as possible, thanks.

Try to do more than 10 characters
There is a post from Gaile Gray about your issue here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Can-t-change-password-3/first#post1571028

remember there is a two-hour cooldown on each try, if the password fails…if you have trouble changing your password, creating a support ticket is the easiest and fastest way to get help

To go on top of the password vaults, there’s an easy way to make a strong password: Hold the Shift button, press one of the following letters four times: q, w, e, r, t, u, i, o, p. Then press the number above that four times: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Next, release the Shift button and press a DIFFERENT LETTER of the list before four times. Finally, use the number above that four times. Example would look like this: “YYYY^^^^qqqq1111”. There’s a pattern there, yes, but there’s a capital letter, a special character, a lowercase letter, and a number. But it is a strong password. And because of the pattern, its easier to remember.

I would like to note that I do not use this method for my password, but I did use it for NIPERNET Access while I was in the Navy.

If you still couldn’t change your password, do what inculpatuas cedo said submit a ticket here:https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/ask/

I was trying to complete my daily, and I had logged in earlier and gotten 2/5, but when I attempted to log back in with 15 minutes remaining, I got the “You must change your password” fun that ArenaNet implemented. I did so with relative ease, but it’s taking a while for it to propogate through their system, long enough so that I missed my daily today.
Boo-hoo, right? Yeah, not a big deal, but in the face of all the little deals this game throws at me to chip away at my patience, I just thought I’d vent here.

I had no problem with my 8 character password with at least 1 uppercase letter and 1 number, but these new password requirements are ridiculous. I wasn’t able to change my password until after 10 tries and by that point it was at 13 characters long with an uppercase letter and number. It’s just as strong as it was before and having to make some long drawn out password is ridiculous.

This is more demanding than military passwords or what corporate Active Directory accounts have.

had this problem i started to send a support ticket followed the auto response problem solver links to recover account instead of change password and the reset password prompt let me do it no problem and that solved the issue

i think the “change password” option on account management is having issues

Meh I’m not even sure if my password changed because it either tells me it needs 8 characters without telling me if my old pw is correct OR it tells me someone is already using the pw or the pw is invalid.

So now I’m locked out of my account and had to submit a ticket. :/

Try this https://account.guildwars2.com/recovery

Agreed. Ive been trying to make a new password for an hour or so. I just want to play my game after a hard day at work. These new requirements are crazy.

I have the same issue as in the first post.
This is ridiculous, I have never been hacked and do NOT wish to change my password and on top of this, I’m unable to do so as your website seems bugged.

I agree.
This is simply dumb, not only the requirements, but being forced to change and unable to due to a technical issue with the site.

I fully agree change passwords or add more security.

It is absurd to deny access to a game that I bought.

Please troubleshoot as soon as as possible. This is damaging the image of the game in my concept.

Good news folks, I already got an email reply to the ticket I submitted at the time of my previous post.
They gave me a new password (random letters and numbers) and I logged in and changed my password from my profile page.
Maybe that’s what the problem was… the page they link from the launcher is kitten and you can maybe use your profile page and edit from there.
Otherwise I have no idea why it would work now and didn’t earlier if all they did was give me a new password… since I did end up changing it successfully afterwards.
Weird issue anyway.

TL;DR: Try changing your password from your profile instead of the page the launcher sends you to.
If that fails, send ticket.

Gibson Research the company that does spinrite disk utility is another place to go it has a lot of info on password security

White Wolf.3291:

Try this https://account.guildwars2.com/recovery

My wife cant find the email with her serial code on it. What now?

Hello. I have not played for about a month or two and now when i want to log on i must change my password. I’m fine with that but when i go to my account setting type in the old password, type in my new one click save changed nothing happens. I dont get a confirmation that i have changed my password or anything. When i want to log in my account and try to use my new password it says that its invalid, and im able to log on with my old one. Could anyone help me out with this?

I have submitted a ticket but they have done nothing so far except have me reset my password. But if you read below that does nothing.

“error 11:1001:2:1352” (see attachment for screen shot)

Every time I try to log in the launcher.

On the screen shot you can see the Red text “Account Recovery” and the error code / version in the bottom left of the message.

If I click " OK " it sends me right back to the launcher.

If I click “Account Recovery” (in red text) It send me to the same link someone posted above. Reposed here: https://account.guildwars2.com/recovery

Once you fill out that I get two options:

1.) Reset my password
I have done this close to 10 times now. Have started writing them down so I know it 100%. This helps nothing by the way. Still get the same error with new passwords.

2.) Disable Linked Authentication
This disables authentication by email or mobile.
I have tried logging with this disabled and still get the same error.

At this point that is it. Just keeps going in the same circle of what i have explained above.

edit: here is a screen shot of the second page after filling out the Recover Account info.

Sure. So here it goes
When i launch the GW2.exe i get the first screenshot, it prompts me to change my password, no biggie. I click the “Change your password” button and it requires me to log in my account(screenshot 2), then i get to the “account” bar and i type in my old password and then the new one twice. When i do that i either click “save changes” or press enter and nothing happens, just the page refreshes (screen 3). Following that after logout and try to log back in i must use my old password to be able to log in, since my new passwords dont seem to be working.

PS: When i try to change my password from example: flufflylittlekitty to fluffylittlekitten, and it does not save it and then try to change my password for a second time to flufflylittlekitten, it says that its in the list of used passwords and i should choose another one, but thats not that big of an issue as the problem above.

katharsys.3467:

Sure. So here it goes
When i launch the GW2.exe i get the first screenshot, it prompts me to change my password, no biggie. I click the “Change your password” button and it requires me to log in my account(screenshot 2), then i get to the “account” bar and i type in my old password and then the new one twice. When i do that i either click “save changes” or press enter and nothing happens, just the page refreshes (screen 3).

I am having this exact same issue. I launch the game and it tells me I need to reset me password. I click the button to change my password and log into the website. I put in my old password and a new password twice and click Save Changes or hit enter and the page just refreshes. Both new password fields are highlighted in red but there’s no text explaining whether something was wrong with the password.

EDIT: I got it to successfully change by putting in a gibberish password that I have absolutely no hope in hell of remembering. Anything sensible I come up with is rejected. Some of them have no reason displayed, and some explain that they’re on a list or someone else has used it before.

Telling the user that he’s picked a password someone else may already be using is a BIG security no-no, that could feasibly be used to create a brute force list of passwords that have a very high probability of being in active use, to test against random email addresses that might be guild wars 2 usernames. How did someone think that was a good idea?

themaster.9802:

I had no problem with my 8 character password with at least 1 uppercase letter and 1 number, but these new password requirements are ridiculous. I wasn’t able to change my password until after 10 tries and by that point it was at 13 characters long with an uppercase letter and number. It’s just as strong as it was before and having to make some long drawn out password is ridiculous.

This is more demanding than military passwords or what corporate Active Directory accounts have.

That said, at the very least, you know that it will be next to impossible for your account to be hacked.

A work around, load up GW2 launcher, hit “forget password.”

Then do the password reset email stuff. It changes your password (Thus solving the requirement of having to do so), and works. I literally just did that after the change password page wasn’t loading.