Cannot Login to FreedomBox

Pioneer Support
1

If you are asking for support for an issue, please include the following information at the top of your post:

  1. My FreedomBox is plugged into a router.
  2. My router has a public IP address which that may change over time.
  3. I bought FreedomBox in Jan 2023.
  4. I updated FreedomBox successfully and then installed the Apps successfully. However, I did not remember & did not receive a notice to “…obtain a Let’s Encrypt certificate.”
  5. I logged out of Freedombox.local and now I cannot log back in. I know I entered the correct Username and pretty sure I got the password correct too. I entered what I had wriiten down.
    PLEASE HELP.
    Thanks
  • Whether your FreedomBox is plugged into a router at home or not (if not, please specify how it is connected to the internet)
  • The month and year you bought your kit (feel free to omit if you want to preserve some privacy, but this could be helpful information)
  • The version of FreedomBox your are running (available by clicking on the “?” in the top menu → “About”)
2

Do you mean that

  • you have setup a username/password for admin, as asked by the web interface
  • you can still access the web interface, but when you try entering that username/password again, you’ve got the message “please enter a valid username/password, note that username/password are case sensitive” (I tried translating to English what I have in another language so the wording may not be that exactly).

?

3

Yes - that is exactly correct. Thank you so much for taking your time to help.

4

Do you have your keyboard configured in another language than English?

What happened to me sometimes is that when I entered a password, the keyboard layout that applied was not what I thought (US instead of French) so the password I have set is not what I thought I had set, I printed a US keyboard layout to find out what password I had actually typed.

If that is not the problem, then I don’t know what could have happened. My suggestion would be to switch your device off and put the microSD card in a reader in another computer preferrably running a GNU/Linux system. Two options then:

  • option 1: mount the microSD card, chroot to the mount point, then “passwd your-username”
  • option 2: make a fresh install microSD card (to start again from the begining)

For option 1: I have not tried, so do that only if you know what you are doing.
For option 2, you need to:

  1. Download the image using the link at Pioneer Edition FreedomBox | FreedomBox - Personal Server at Home
  2. Write it to the microSD card as explained at FreedomBox/Download - Debian Wiki (xz and dd commands)
5

Thank you so very much for your help. I will start over and try option 2. When I began, I was using a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse on an iMac. The mouse kept turning off. I then switched to a wired keyboard and wired mouse. I believe I entered an administrator user Id and password with the wired devices but, at this point, who knows. Time to start over. Thank you again.

6

I did a fresh install on a microSD card and started over. It worked. I am now able to login to the freedom box. So, that problem is solved. I forgot to post this. Thanks.