Can't login using password & id given from bloodhound `./bloodhound-cli resetpwd`

[DSCmatter]

I have tried resetting the passwd multiple times but no progress. And also via http://127.0.0.1:8080/ui/login - always gives An error occurred when attempting to reset your password. Please try again.

I used this guide: https://bloodhound.specterops.io/get-started/quickstart/community-edition-quickstart

[psionicjake]

Hi @DSCmatter,

Have you ensured that you are using the correct password from this command: bloodhound-cli config get default_password

That will show you the automatically generated password that was created during the install process. If that isn't working, we can try a few more steps to ensure you're able to reset it successfully.

After running: ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd

It will give you output like: User ID: admin Password: somethingsecure

Make sure you're using "admin" (or whatever ID it shows) as the username, not your email address or something else.

You can also try to run the full command explicitly like this: ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd --user-id admin --password 'YourNewPassword'

Then restart the BloodHound container (if it's dockerized) to ensure the change is picked up: docker restart bloodhound

Or if running via docker-compose: docker-compose restart

Sometimes the web UI might have trouble with certain special characters. Try resetting it to a simple password (temporarily) like: ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd --user-id admin --password 'BloodHound123' Then test that login via http://127.0.0.1:8080/ui/login

Sometimes the login failure is not because of the password, but because of a broken backend connection to the Neo4j database or the internal user store.

If you’re using docker-compose, make sure all services are up: docker-compose ps

If any are exiting or restarting, there’s likely a problem in the stack. You can inspect individual logs: docker-compose logs

Let me know if you make any progress with these suggestions or if you're still having issues with the pw. And let me know the install method you used to set it up.

[iamagarre]

Hi everyone!

Same issue here.

After a succesfull installation the random password does not work to login as admin.

Same issue after running ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd.

You can no longer run ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd --user-id admin --password 'YourNewPassword'

[Impensio]

I also observed the same issue. The default password doesn't work, nor does the password I obtained after running ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd.

[iamagarre]

Hello!

I did a new installation and it worked! The only difference was to install Docker using the .deb package instead of the apt install commmand.

[brittadams]

Same issue, new install and unable to reset password on initial login. get error of "An error occurred when attempting to reset your password. please try again."

[StephenHinck]

Hey all, can you please post the output of docker compose version for me to help troubleshoot this?

[mis-ssn]

Same issue, Docker Compose version v2.35.1-desktop.1

[rolling-code]

yup I have confirmed this bug as well on multiple setups.

The solution believe it or not-boost your VM RAM from Kali's 2GB default up to 8..

[mis-ssn]

but I’m running natively on Mac (not in a VM), so increasing VM RAM didn’t apply to my situation. The problem still persists on my setup.

[clfr0nt]

I'm experiencing this same issue, I think (?). I can log in using the randomly generated password, but the reset prompt right after gives me "An error occurred when attempting to reset your password. Please try again." – as mentioned in the OP. Looking at the request in the Network tab shows this error:

{
  "http_status": 401,
  "timestamp": "2025-07-16T11:27:56.654678728Z",
  "request_id": "0ece1675-47d0-4b03-825f-4af2c26080ca",
  "errors": [
    {
      "context": "",
      "message": "not authorized for d69c3147-f4e6-4817-b4a0-c5a39e7569fd"
    }
  ]
}

So somewhere there's a permissions issue. d69c3147-f4e6-4817-b4a0-c5a39e7569fd seems to be the default uid for the admin account.

This occurs with both bloodhound-cli and using Docker manually via the docker-compose.yml file. Both are the latest builds. Other info:

$ docker-compose -v
Docker Compose version 2.26.1-4
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
$ uname -a                   
Linux kali 6.12.25-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Kali 6.12.25-1kali1 (2025-04-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux

[m2rc-p]

In my case, besides not being able to login, right after I ran sudo ./bloodhound-cli resetpwd, the bloodhound-bloodhound-1 exited with error Exited (1) and the UI was no longer accesible.

The logs showed the following:

time=2025-07-18T07:00:11.323Z level=INFO message="Reading configuration found at /bloodhound.config.json"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:11.324Z level=INFO message="Logging configured"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:11.346Z level=INFO message="No database driver has been set for migration, using: neo4j"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:11.346Z level=INFO message="Connecting to graph using Neo4j"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:11.347Z level=INFO message="Starting daemon Tools API"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:11.352Z level=INFO message="No new SQL migrations to run"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:13.537Z level=INFO message="Recreating default admin user"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:15.268Z level=ERROR message="Database error" query="DELETE FROM \"users\" WHERE \"users\".\"id\" = 'be814c7c-be2a-497c-96c5-7e5c1a11583e'" err="ERROR: update or delete on table \"users\" violates foreign key constraint \"fk_file_upload_jobs_user\" on table \"ingest_jobs\" (SQLSTATE 23503)"
time=2025-07-18T07:00:15.271Z level=ERROR message="Failed starting the server: failed to start services: unable to delete exisiting admin user: admin: ERROR: update or delete on table \"users\" violates foreign key constraint \"fk_file_upload_jobs_user\" on table \"ingest_jobs\" (SQLSTATE 23503)"

Also, the postgres instance got another error:

2025-07-18 06:59:50.039 UTC [29] LOG:  database system was shut down at 2025-07-18 06:59:42 UTC
2025-07-18 06:59:50.050 UTC [1] LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
2025-07-18 07:00:15.268 UTC [49] ERROR:  update or delete on table "users" violates foreign key constraint "fk_file_upload_jobs_user" on table "ingest_jobs"
2025-07-18 07:00:15.268 UTC [49] DETAIL:  Key (id)=(be814c7c-be2a-497c-96c5-7e5c1a11583e) is still referenced from table "ingest_jobs".
2025-07-18 07:00:15.268 UTC [49] STATEMENT:  DELETE FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = $1

The solution for me was to manually log into the postgres DB and delete all the ingest jobs:

$ sudo docker exec -it bloodhound-app-db-1 /bin/bash
root@1c3890be9f09:/# psql -h 127.0.0.1
psql (16.9 (Debian 16.9-1.pgdg120+1))
Type "help" for help.

bloodhound=# delete from ingest_jobs where user_id = 'be814c7c-be2a-497c-96c5-7e5c1a11583e';

After doing this, the resetpwd worked fine.

[Impensio]

I had exactly the same issue as described by @m2rc-p. I checked the solution and it worked for me too.

[StephenHinck]

This is super helpful information - exactly what I needed to confirm the issue. The constraint on the ingest_jobs table is holding up the reset because we're recreating the user. I'll get this logged internally for a fix!

[fawkesianmask]

Hi, still getting this on a M4 Mac with a clean install. Is there any news on a fix?

[fawkesianmask]

Also, two separate clean installs are generating the same default password which is odd

[m2rc-p]

@fawkesianmask have you tried my workaround above? https://github.com/SpecterOps/BloodHound/issues/1383#issuecomment-3087602203

[StephenHinck]

@fawkesianmask - can you confirm what version of BloodHound you experienced this on? I believe this was fixed as of v8.4.0.