Failed to decrypt the saved password

[amirhossein-deriv]

Describe the bug

We upgraded our pgAdmin to V9.3, now there are two kind of issues:

the saved password for one user gets error:
Failed to decrypt the saved password. Error: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xaf in position 1: invalid start byte

and

Failed to decrypt the saved password. Error: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte Oxd5 in position 0: invalid continuation byte
to solve this issue regarding our online research we find these links helpful and based on them we cleared the passwords for all connections and setup them.

https://www.pgadmin.org/docs/pgadmin4/9.3/clear_saved_passwords.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56526882/pgadmin-error-failed-to-decrypt-the-saved-password

We have the second issue that raised after the other one:
connection failed: connection to server at "xx.xx.xx.xx", port 5432 failed: fe_sendauth: no password supplied
To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

upgrade version 8.12 to 9.3
See the error
Expected behavior

Regarding the issue posted from older versions, it should be solved and don't raise again.

Error message

Failed to decrypt the saved password. Error: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xaf in position 1: invalid start byte

Failed to decrypt the saved password. Error: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte Oxd5 in position 0: invalid continuation byte

Screenshots

Docker:

image: dpage/pgadmin4:9.3
Version: [e.g. 6.15]
Mode: [e.g Desktop or Server]
Browser: chrome
Package type: Container

sharing below our pgadmin info

Version 9.5
Application Mode Server
Commit a571490 2025-06-27
Python Version 3.12.11
Browser Chrome 139.0.0.0
Operating System Alpine Linux v3.22, Linux-5.10.0-35-cloud-amd64-x86_64-with
pgAdmin Database File /var/lib/pgadmin/pgadmin4.db
And this is our PgAdmin Docker compose file

version: '3.7'
services:
pgadmin:
image: dpage/pgadmin4:9.5
deploy:
replicas: 1
placement:
constraints: [node.role == manager]
resources:
limits:
memory: 4G
ports:
- 8001:80
environment:
- PGADMIN_DEFAULT_EMAIL=
- PGADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD=
- PGADMIN_CONFIG_ENHANCED_COOKIE_PROTECTION=False
- PGADMIN_CONFIG_WTF_CSRF_CHECK_DEFAULT=False
volumes:
- type: bind
source: /data/pgadmin
target: /var/lib/pgadmin
- type: bind
source: /data/pgadmin/servers.json
target: /pgadmin/servers.json
please do let us know if anything else we can provide to help replicating this

unsolved lssue:
#8776
#5487

[yogeshmahajan-1903]

@amirhossein-deriv
Can you please share the Docker logs that were printed during the upgrade? Also, if possible, can you please share dummy passwords which has special characters that are being used in the actual password?

Also, please try with the latest pgadmin version.

[amirhossein-deriv]

@yogeshmahajan-1903
I attached the logs and the dummy password is: AhQwY!eT0y00nRxh5PDO%qA&gAD$fsSRQ6N

pgAdminlogs.txt

[skel0]

Same problem here using pgAdmin 9.8, master password enabled and oauth2 authentication using Entra ID.

[Lxrdknows77]

Same bug. Basically as temp solution we switched to non-shared server connection per user. Few hours investigetions didn't help.

[mbtx2]

We are also having this same issue. Been going for a while. I suspect that it has something to do with special characters in password. Just a guess, since not everyone experiences it. Perhaps some auto-generated passwords use characters that won't work in utf-8. We are on 9.8.

[nptrainor]

Version 9.9
I have the same problem of not begin able to save the password - it is making PgAdmin UNUSABLE for me.
The password I use is all lower case, is made up of characters from a-z only.

2025-10-21 14:03:03,702: ERROR pgadmin: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xcc in position 0: invalid continuation byte
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/pgadmin4/web/pgadmin/utils/driver/psycopg3/connection.py", line 257, in _decode_password
password = password.decode()
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xcc in position 0: invalid continuation byte

Using Desktop App on Fedora.

[lightvik]

Some our users confirm this bug on version 9.9, password haven't special symbols.
downgrade to 9.4 help resolve problem.

[neonlight911]

v9.9 - have the same issue

[yogeshmahajan-1903]

@yogeshmahajan-1903 I attached the logs and the dummy password is: AhQwY!eT0y00nRxh5PDO%qA&gAD$fsSRQ6N

pgAdminlogs.txt

@amirhossein-deriv
I am not able to reproduce the issue. Are you using OAuth2 for authentication? The logs shared by you does not have any error.
If possible could you please share complete docker config?

[yogeshmahajan-1903]

Same problem here using pgAdmin 9.8, master password enabled and oauth2 authentication using Entra ID.

@skel0
Is the problem arises after upgrades to 9.8 or it was in previous version too? What was pgadmin version where this was working for you. Are facing same issue with newly added server? Can you please try clearing password for existing server and again save it and try recoonecting?

[yogeshmahajan-1903]

going for a while. I suspect that it has something to do with special characters in password. Just a guess, since not everyone experiences it. Perhaps some auto-generated passwords use characters that won't work in utf-8. We are on 9.8.

@mbtx2
Can you please share some dummy passwords from users for who this does not work?