My Magento connect panel shows “Invalid login credentials”. I checked the username and password 10 or 20 times and it’s correct. Please help!!

That was a recent support request we received at our Outsourced Tech Support services where we resolve support queries for web hosting providers.

The Magento Connect panel shows the error “Invalid login credentials” even though he used the correct logins every time.

What’s wrong here?

Today, let’s see the common causes of this error and a quick way to fix it.

When you see “invalid login credentials” error in Magento connect?

Magento owners cite broadly 3 situations where this error happens.

• When the Magento website is migrated to a new server.
• Patches done on the server to solve security issues.
• DNS changes done on the Magento website.

Reason for “invalid login credentials” error in Magento connect

The Magento connect is a great tool for website owners to download and add additional modules or extensions to their application.

The files /downloader/cache.cfg and /downloader/connect.cfg contain configuration details and version details of the downloaded packages.

In our experience handling Magento issues, let’s see the common reasons for the error “invalid login credentials” in Magento connect.

• Incorrect FTP logins in connect.cfg file – You’ve changed the website’s FTP login credentials. However, the connect.cfg file holds old credentials.
• Incorrect installation path in cache.cfg file – The cache file stores a full path to the install, so when a website is moved to a new server this likely isn’t a valid path.

How to fix “invalid login credentials” error in Magento connect?

There’s a simple fix to get rid of this problem.

Before proceeding with the below steps, it’s recommended to backup your website files and database.

• Login to your website using FTP.
• Go to “[install path]/downloader” folder.
• Rename or delete the file “connect.cfg“.
• Log back to your Magento admin panel.
• Go to system > cache management.
• Flush the Magento cache.
• Also, flush Cache storage, Catalog images cache and Javascript/CSS cache.
• This will create new connect.cfg and cache.cfg files with correct details(FTP and install path).

That’s it. Try to login to your Magento Connect panel once again.

There must no longer be any problems logging in.

Conclusion

“Invalid login credentials” in Magento connect is one of the irritating errors that Magento owners often come across. Today, we’ve seen the common causes for this error and how our Support Engineers fix them.