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The password reset advice that locked me out for 3 days

My old IT buddy swore I should use a passphrase with numbers and symbols mixed in, so I made one like 'Goat$2024Trail!'. Then my work laptop updated and the keyboard switched layouts, and I couldn't type the $ symbol anymore. I spent 3 days guessing combos before realizing the issue. The irony is the simple 8-character password I used before never gave me a problem. Why do experts push complexity when it just creates new failure points? Anyone else had a clever password backfire like that?
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olivia_bailey
Funny you mention that, cause my password drama was with a spacebar. I had this whole thing with underscores and numbers, thought I was being clever. Then my cat walked across the keyboard and hit some combo that changed my typing language to something with Cyrillic letters. Didn't notice for like two whole days. Every time I tried to log in, it just kept failing, and I'm sitting there thinking I forgot my own password. Finally my brother came over and saw the little language icon in the corner of the screen. We both just stared at it for a minute. The wild part is my old password was just my dog's name and a year, never once had a problem. Now I just use the same four word phrase everywhere and call it a day.
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davis.noah
davis.noah17d ago
Heard a security guy say complexity just moves the problem somewhere else.
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