Password emergency / mystery with Filemaker

June 11, 2007 12:26 AM

Password emergency / mystery. I'm a new Filemaker user and I've somehow set a password that's keeping me from accessing the file I just put two days of work (and some not easily replaceable data) into.

I'm running Filemaker Pro Advanced 8.5v1 on an Intel Mac (OS 10.4.8).

I installed and started learning Filemaker on Friday. I was playing around with all the settings and options, and one is password-protecting a file. Since I was only experimenting with making my first file, and since I (wrongly??) thought I was setting a file-level rather than application-level password, I put in a throwaway password which I now do not remember and have no record of. The next time I tried to open this file it prompted me for the password, I tried a few times but couldn't remember it, and I gave up and created a new file.

This second file DID open repeatedly without a password during the same session of the application (i.e. app had not been restarted since creation of this second file, but file closed and opened freely). Unfortunately this session didn't shut down properly because of an unrelated issue (buggy unrelated app -- which I must use -- that occasionally makes my system stop responding and need to be manually shut down by holding the power button).

After I restarted the computer and Filemaker, my attempt to open this second file gave me the same password prompt. I'm 100% positive I didn't set a file-level password for this second file. This second file was made from scratch, not from a template and not a copy of the first file.

I tried creating a third file -- doing nothing but defining a few fields and one record, saving the file, and restarting the app. This third file DOES OPEN without a password -- implying this is not an app-level password issue.

During all of this I've been logged in as an Administrator-level user. The username in the password prompt is my Administrator username (but my system-level Administrator password is definitely not the password Filemaker wants). The option to log in as "guest" is greyed out.

I've Googled and the only Filemaker password reset or recovery utilities I can find are for Windows. Filemaker's Help says nothing about removing a password.

Please tell me there's some way to open my second file. I unfortunately put a LOT of work into it over the weekend, both data entry & careful layout/formatting. I dutifully made running backups of it... which are of course as unopenable as the original. Trying to open the file in a plain text editor gives me nothing usable (just strings of random-seeming characters).

I'm ready to entirely uninstall and reinstall Filemaker if it will help, but I can only assume these first two files have some metadata that says "no copy of Filemaker can open me without this password." If I were the company, I would've put in many safeguards to prevent me from doing what I'm trying to do now...

posted by lorimer to computers & internet (10 answers total)

I am not sure this would work for you but John the Ripper is worth trying.
posted by vizsla at 4:35 AM on June 11, 2007

Reinstalling FMP won't help. Your best bet is to find a Windows machine to install a password recovery tool. I've used the Filemaker Key program successfully - but it costs $45.
posted by wearyaswater at 5:43 AM on June 11, 2007

Thanks -- I've found a tutorial that suggests John the Ripper will only work on a .txt file. Is that true? I don't entirely understand the JTR process but could try it out on a Windows machine.

This password would have been a weak one, just one of those "falls under my fingers" sequences on the keyboard -- so, not a dictionary word but also not anything except lowercase letters and numerals. Almost certainly either 6 or 7 characters long.
posted by lorimer at 9:31 AM on June 11, 2007

Try making a duplicate of the file and opening that. Try making a duplicate of the file and opening that on a different drive. Sounds crazy but this has helped me in similar situations.

I've had this problem, got round it by setting up the parameters of access before beginning to fill the database; specifically i tend to allow full guest access to avoid password hiccups of this kind. Altho I'm sure FMP professionals don't have this problem.
posted by londongeezer at 2:55 PM on June 11, 2007

Good idea but sadly didn't work for me -- I tried many generations of copies both on the same drive and an external drive -- also tried opening using a fresh install of FMP on the external drive -- no luck. The need for a password is clearly embedded in the file and I absolutely didn't do that manually (and as I said I can create new files that open without a pw).
posted by lorimer at 4:28 PM on June 11, 2007

Try Googling < password recovery filemaker mac> and you'll find several options that don't require Windows. If the problem is indeed a password-protected file, they should help. However, if the file is corrupted (because your Mac crashed) then you might need a different approach.
posted by exphysicist345 at 8:19 PM on June 11, 2007

exphysicist345, are you sure? In searches like that, there are many things that LOOK like they don't require Windows when you look at their summaries on the Google search page -- but on closer examination they only run on Windows. Phrases like "works on Mac" are just included elsewhere on the page, or refer to the fact that the sw, which runs only on Windows, can unlock a FMP file that was originally created on a Mac.

Are you seeing something I'm missing?
posted by lorimer at 10:08 PM on June 11, 2007

lorimer: Oops, I didn't make that important distinction. Thank you for pointing it out.
posted by exphysicist345 at 11:26 PM on June 12, 2007

Update: thanks for your suggestions, everybody -- as it turns out, the problem (as I sort of feared) is deeper than a password issue. I've tried a commerical Windows utility, Filemaker Key, and it reported my file as "no password assigned."
posted by lorimer at 7:44 AM on June 13, 2007

Final (happy) update which I came back to add!

As it turns out the username was set to "admin" and the password was BLANK. That results in password-cracking apps saying no password is set. So if you came here by searching for this problem... don't forget to try using "admin" as the username with nothing in the password field.
posted by lorimer at 10:34 PM on February 13, 2008