EA 12.1 keeps asking for password on startup

[Eamonn John Casey]

Hi!

I am having a problem which was working before. I have enabled security on a repository and before vacation I could log in. During summer they restarted the server. Now EA 12.1 keeps asking for a passord whtn it starts up.
I have alot of other respitories which work fine using Windows Authentication.

Is there a default password or other workaround?

Eamonn J. Casey

[Helmut Ortmann]

admin
password

Regards,

Helmut

[qwerty]

Or in an emergency case: clear the contents of the table t_secpolicies. That also turns off EA security.

q.

[Aaron B]

Hi Eamonn,

You mention that the server was "restarted".  Is it possible that the repository may have been moved?  Are the other repositories you mentioned that are still working on the same server?  You might need to toggle the "Use Windows Authentication" option off and on again.

As a security measure, the Window Authentication is automatically deactivated if the project file is moved to a different location; once the file has been relocated, you can toggle the 'Accept Windows Authentication' checkbox to reactivate Windows Authentication.

From http://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/12.1/the_model_repository/import_user_ids_from_active_di.html

As Helmut mentioned, the default username/password creating when you first enable security is 'admin' and 'password'.  If that account has been modified or deleted however and you have no other way to login, you may need to go in via the back-end to disable security.  If that's the case, qwerty's suggestion will probably work, but is overkill.  You only need to delete the row from t_secpolicies where [Property] = 'UserSecurity'

See one of qwerty's previous answers here which is more accurate:
http://sparxsystems.com/forums/smf/index.php/topic,4593.msg121076.html#msg121076

[Eamonn John Casey]

Found the real problem and the solution.

I retried the password until EA reached its retry limit. Then an Oracle message popped up saying that the TNS Listener refused the connection. Turns out that the database was not started!!!  One call to the DBA to spin up my database and problem solved. 

[qwerty]

Still funny that EA does prompt for a PW rather than telling the user "could not connect to DB". EAUI

q.

[Glassboy]

Still funny that EA does prompt for a PW rather than telling the user "could not connect to DB". EAUI

It's very common.  The layers under the Win32 app have received back a generic "access denied" or similarly unhelpful message and the only graceful thing it can do is signal an authentication failure which is presented to the user as an authentication prompt.

Experienced support people all have stories of using network and application monitors  to get to the bottom of these problems.  It's one of the reasons I'm very insistent that any application I'm involved with the development of properly handles errors and logging.

[qwerty]

I know it's common (I think have seen similar behavior elsewhere). But bad behavior is never good behavior just for being "common".

q.

[Glassboy]

My point is that it's not Sparx's problem or even Window's problem.  In this case it's Oracle's problem.

[Eve]

My point is that it's not Sparx's problem or even Window's problem.  In this case it's Oracle's problem.

Probably a combination of all three. Microsoft defined the interface, Oracle returned a response based on that interface. Enterprise Architect responded to the error code by showing a password prompt that provided insufficient information. Leading multiple people to interpret it as a request for an EA security password instead.

PS. The EA security prompt includes both UserID and Password. But if you normally have Windows Authentication on you wouldn't see that.
PPS. If it's common, EAUI as I first saw it (where the 'U' stood for unique) wouldn't apply.

[Glassboy]

I've spent too much time with a network monitor looking at what Oracle does to be that kind :-)