Why am I unable to log in?

There are a number of potential issues that could be the problem if your username/password combination doesn't seem to be working or you can't log in to your computer.

It could be a problem with the network in general, with that particular computer or with your usercode. Although I will be dealing with usercode type problems here, let me make some quick observations regarding general network or particular computer problems. If you suspect a general network problem, check out other users in nearby rooms - are they also having problems? If so, the problem is almost certainly a general network problem. If users on other floors seem to be ok, it could be due to a problem with a network hub or network switch on just your floor. Sometimes though, the problem can be university wide and everyone everywhere is having network problems. In the case of general network problems (especially floor specific ones), please contact ArtsIT helpdesk to make sure they know about the issue. If you suspect that the computer is the problem, try logging in on a different computer. Does the Novell login work? What about if you start up Netscape and try to go to a website outside Monash (such as http://google.com) - does it go there after you give your authcate username and password? If things work elsewhere, it may well be the computer that's the problem.

Now to usercode specific problems. There are a lot of possible reasons why you might be having trouble but some are more common than others and worth taking a look at first. You can click one of the following links to jump down to a discussion of that problem.

• Could my appointment/contract have finished?
• Is the Caps Lock key ON when entering the email or authcate password?
• Is there a gap between my appointments/contracts?
• Are the details in my Novell login box correct?
• Is my Netscape profile set up correctly?
• Has my password expired (on WebEdit)?
• Is there some kind of Windows password problem?

"Could my appointment/contract have finished?"

If you are a sessional tutor or Honorary Research Associate or on some sort of contract, perhaps the end date for that appointment has come . The IT systems receive regular updates from the Personnel system (SAP) about who's current and who's not. If it sees that your appointment is no longer current, it will change your passwords to deny you access (unless the "one month grace period" has been previously granted). For a diagram that explains how the grace period works, see here .

The easiest way to check (if you suspect this to be the problem) is to ask your local school admin officer to check your details in SAP to see if your appointment details are still current. When your appointment end date is within a month, the system will send you an email saying that this is the case and that "you need to follow it up" so if you received such a message a month or so back you'll know that this is probably what's happened.

If you are continuing on and your staff id number is no longer current, your local school admin officer will need to chase things up (get some paperwork generated for you). You can be granted a "one month grace period" so that you can gain access for a further month after your enddate. Hopefully, within that month, if you are continuing on, your details will get sorted out in SAP (the Personnel system) and you'll become "current" again. If not, one month after your enddate has passed, your accounts will all be removed. Note that during that extra one month of "limbo" period between the appointment enddate and final deletion of accounts, email is still being delivered to your account. If you know your enddate is coming and that you WON'T be getting a "one month grace period", you may want to set your vacation message so people sending email to you know what's going on. A vacation message is a special message that (if activated) is automatically sent out to anyone that sends you email. You might set up something along these lines -

"I won't be accessing this email account after 31/11/2002. For personal email please contact me at Joe.Bloggs@hotmail.com Note that Betty Smith will be taking over my university position from 5/12/2002 and should be contacted for any queries that were previously referred to me."

You do that by going to http://mail.monash.edu.au, logging in, then choosing the "Options" tab then "Vacation Message". Tick the check box, put in your message, then click "Save changes".

Another option is to put a forward on your email to some other address. To do this, follow the above instructions, except that, instead of choosing "Vacation Message", choose "Settings". Fill in the "Mail Forwarding" box putting in the email address that messages are to be forwarded to. When you done, click on "Save Options" down lower to lock in the changes you've made. It will start working immediately.

Remember that once the extra month (after your enddate) has passed, the accounts will be deleted if you are not current in the system again by then. With the accounts gone, your email forwarding and/or vacation message will be gone too and email sent to your old address will simply "bounce" back to the sender saying something like "unknown recipient" - that's because you're not in the Monash system anymore.

"Is the CAPs Lock Key On When Entering the Email or Authcate Password?"

A very common problem is that the Caps Lock button on your keyboard is on and your password is being entered in capital letters.

The Novell login box doesn't care whether the username and/or password are in capitals or not. To Novell, it's all the same.

However, authcate, MMS (which stands for Monash Messaging System - ie the email) and SNG (for doing official Monash Arts web pages) DO care. For them, it's best to stick to lowercase for your passwords and make sure the Caps Lock key is off when typing in the username and password.

"Is there a gap between my appointments/contracts?"

Another possibility is that your contracts don't "join up" in SAP (the Personnel system). Say one contract ended on Friday 3rd June and the next was in SAP as starting on Monday 6th June. Over that intervening weekend, the IT system would think you weren't current and would change your password to cut off your access. You'd then need your password reset on the Monday to gain access again. However if the contacts "join up" in SAP, you should be ok. (eg one goes from 2/4/2002 to 1/4/2003 and the next goes from 2/4/2003 to 1/4/2004).

"Are the details in my Novell login box correct?"

Another possible problem is that your Novell context is incorrectly entered. Suppose your usercode is JSMITH and you are from the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, which has the Novell context Languages.Arts.Monash If someone else from some other school (say ECPS) has logged in on your computer, the computer will probably remember their context (ECPS .Arts.Monash) and still have that one entered. Although your username and password is entered correctly, the system is trying to look for you in the wrong place in the Novell system.

The way to fix this is to first bring up your Novell login box -

Next you need to click on in the Novell login box and change the context to the correct one.

On Windows 2000/Windows XP systems, the problem may be that the Location: field in the Novell login box in incorrect . You should also ensure that this Location: field shows ArtsStaff rather than ArtsIT.

On all systems, the correct tree for Monash Arts staff is staff-au and that's what should be entered in the Tree: box.

"Is my Netscape profile set up correctly?"

Yet another potential problem can arise when you are trying to get into your email via Netscape Messenger. In Netscape Messenger, profiles are set up for each different user using Netscape Messenger on that computer. Each user has their own bookmarks, locally kept email folders, address books, distribution lists, signatures etc. A profile is set up for each user and contains all of these things - this keeps all of the various different user's bits and pieces separate.

If a profile hasn't been set up correctly, it may be missing the username. Instead of showing something like this -

where the username is given (IMAP user icoulter), it may come up like this -

where the username is missing . You're putting in the correct password but Netscape Messenger doesn't know what username that corresponds to. Give our ArtsIT helpdesk a ring and get them to check out your setup to make sure it is all ok (if this problem is there, there may well be a number of others things that are wrong too in the setup).

"Has my password expired (on WebEdit)?"

Passwords aren't set to expire on the authcate, email and Novell systems. However, they are set to expire occasionally on WebEdit (used for doing official Monash Arts webpages). You may be trying to use WS_FTP program to send some files over and it just refuses to work.

One thing you can try here is to try logging on to sng directly using Teraterm (or some similar program) if you have that on your computer. When you start Teraterm, specify the host as sng.its.monash.edu.au and click the SSH radio box. Put in your username and password and click OK. If you're lucky, you may find that it lets you in but that your password has now expired and you need to choose a new one. Once you've done that, you can type logout to log out of sng then you can try the WS_FTP again successfully. If that doesn't work, you'll need to contact ArtsIT to get the webedit password reset for you.

"Is there some kind of Windows password problem?"

Windows 2000 and Windows XP operate in such a way that you also need to log in to the actual computer that you are using. This is done as an extra level of security but it can be a nuisance too as it means each individual user needs to be set up on the computer as a user of that computer so that Windows knows about them.

ArtsIT has come up with a mechanism whereby there is a generic Windows login called "ArtsStaff". Everyone can then just use this same Windows login - this all happens in the background and you shouldn't have to worry about it.

However, there are still some computers that have Windows 2000 on them that were set up before this mechanism was established. In this case you will need to contact the ArtsIT helpdesk to seek assistance.

Windows 98 doesn't have this "problem". If it asks for the Windows password, you can simply hit cancel and it will let you in anyway. If you are logging on to a particular Windows 98 computer for the first time, you will be given the standard Novell login box initially and can enter your name and password. After you have hit Enter, it will log in to Novell but then you will get a Windows password box. The first line will have a bunch of * symbols in it (the second line should have nothing). It is offering to use the password you just put in as the Windows password as well. Instead, delete the line of *'s so both lines are empty then hit Enter. What this does is say to Windows 98 "when I log into this machine with my login code, I want the Windows password for this to be blank". In the future, Windows won't bug you with a Windows password box but instead will just go straight in.

Suppose you didn't do the above when you first got onto that machine and now it is constantly asking for the Windows password each time you use the computer. Well, you can fix this problem. Go into Windows Explorer, find the C:\Windows directory, then look for the file that is your username then .pwl (eg jsmith.pwl). Delete that file. Now, shut down the computer completely then start it up again. This time when you start up the computer, you'll get the situation described above - ie you log into Novell then get the Windows password box. You now have the chance to remove the line of stars from that first line before hitting Enter. After that - no more Windows password box.