How to handle this?

[frankl]

We occassionally receive calls from customers frustrated that they can't change their password, even after completing the 'Password Forgotten' process.

Turns out they are relying on the saved password in their browser and not entering their new password!

Admittedly these customers are far from tech savvy, but in my experience with situations like this 90% of people will just 'give up' and move on to another store, thinking your site is 'broken'.

Have you experienced this scenario? How do you think it should be handled?

[burt]

It would be difficult to determine whether a password is typed in or auto-filled.
Some funky JS would probably do it, but it would not be 100% and may cause more questions than answers.

The better option, in my opinion, is to add an "eye" icon by the password inputs which would allow the user to flick between `**********` and `plain text`. This way they can actually see what the password input contains.

[frankl]

Good idea Burt. I vaguely remember this being an addon somewhere.

[14Steve14]

We get a similar scenario, very occasionally, where a customer cannot login to their account even though they are using the saved password details that did work. When they try to change the password, which seems to work fine, they still cannot login to the website using the new password they created. We have tried changing their password through admin and could log in to the site using their details, but they still could not.

If they contact us we ask them to try logging in on a private or incognito browser, which opens a new browser with no cookies and that sort of thing, and ten times out of ten they can login using the new password.

It seems that for some reason, very occasionally, another cookie is saved or created, that interferes with the website cookie and causes problems. We have never found the reason. It does mean that we have to put our computer support head on and get them to clear their cookies for the website, which is not that hard depending on their browser.

Also since adding in the eye by the password boxes, we have had no calls about passwords not working, so thanks for creating it @burt Gary.

[burt]

Good idea Burt. I vaguely remember this being an addon somewhere.

I believe I put something in the recent Code Drop - might have been October/November time ?

[BatteryTrader]

I also use the eye / show password; it's been very good, minimising that issue almost 100%. I suspect nearly all of these user issues will go away if you use it. You will always have the occasional one, but you cannot solve all user errors.

It was in the November code drops, emailed to those on the list.

defo should probably be available as an add-on, so it can be found.

[BatteryTrader]

November Drop 3 - Eye Password
by burt » Wed Nov 12, 2025 9:11 am

[burt]

nov3.png