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My password in Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS is being rejected for authentication of updates, app install/uninstall, unlock, ... However, it does work when I log on after a restart. Until a week or so ago it worked for everything. How do I fix this?

Here's the output requested by @muru:

tim@tim-Precision-T1700:~$ groups
tim adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin lxd sambashare
tim@tim-Precision-T1700:~$ sudo -l
[sudo] password for tim: 
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for tim: 

I guess, obviously, one of the consequences of the issue(s) I'm having is that I am unable to perform "sudo" commands.

Another issue that has presented, somewhat unrelated, is that I have not been able, so far, to get to the GRUB menu. not seeing the BIOS screen to signal when to hold down the SHIFT key. I'll keep trying.

Seems like I'm hitting a brick wall. Getting close to going radical and reinstalling Ubuntu, maybe 23.04 or a totally different distro.

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    use grub menu at boot to get to recover shell and type "passwd" cmdlet – petep Aug 05 '23 at 20:10
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  • I think the solution to reassigning a password has been provided. I'll comment further after trying it. I would like to know why the password was lost in the first place so I can avoid it happening in the future. – BeFreeIL Aug 06 '23 at 18:45
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    I think your problem isn't the password but your privileges. Did you change your user's groups recently? Or edit Polkit or sudo configuration? – muru Aug 07 '23 at 02:01
  • @muru: Well, I don't think so on either count, at least not on purpose. That does seems to make sense as a possible cause though. Any way to find out if that were the case or to undo it? – BeFreeIL Aug 07 '23 at 04:14
  • Add the output of groups and sudo -l to the post, please – muru Aug 07 '23 at 04:59
  • @muru: See results in post. – BeFreeIL Aug 07 '23 at 14:48
  • Note that the BIOS issue is unrelated to Ubuntu and we can't help you with it. That'd be dependent on your system, hardware, etc. Simply hold SHIFT from boot up to get to GRUB. If your password isn't working for sudo but works for other things, then I would definitely look at permissions. You are in the sudo group so you SHOULD be able to sudo, make sure you're not fat-fingering your password? – Thomas Ward Aug 08 '23 at 22:29
  • When sudo ... is not working you can always try su (you need to use the password for root, see: man su ) – Luuk Aug 09 '23 at 16:51
  • @Luuk: Tried command "su -l". Here's result, as I expected... tim@tim-Precision-T1700:~$ su -l Password: su: Authentication failure So, can't do that either. – BeFreeIL Aug 10 '23 at 21:36
  • @ThomasWard: I really wasn't looking for any BIOS help . BTW, F2 gets you in on this Dell. That said, holding SHIFT down from the beginning does not bring up GRUB. Same holding down the ESC key. Did multiple other variations with both of those keys. Fat-fingering isn't happening. Have had same password since installing Ubuntu almost 2 years ago. Permissions? Never purposely modified them. In fact, I didn't know anything about how to do that until the last couple of days. – BeFreeIL Aug 10 '23 at 21:53

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