Local upgrade to 1.5.3/Upload to test site/Can't login?

[swguy]

Watch out for this issue:

In 1.5.3, the passwords in the customers and admin tables are updated based on the installed PHP version. So if you download the database to your site, do the upgrade and upload a test version back to the customer's site, and they are running a lower version of PHP than you are, your logins (catalog and admin) will not work in certain cases.

Solution: Get the original customers and admin tables, and upload those to your test database. Then the changes to the passwords (if any) will be based on the local PHP.

PHP < 5.3.7 has one password handling mechanism
PHP 5.3.7 - 5.5.0 has another
PHP 5.5.0 has another

Of course, if you have this problem, you should also tell your client to move to a hoster who doesn't use old software.

For reference, the client's PHP version was 5.2.17, and mine is 5.3.15.

(To determine the PHP version, login to the admin and click the "Version" link in the upper right hand of the screen.)

[swguy]

Search tags: Password failure, login failure, admin login fails.