Issues with updating passwords

Anand Patel

ftb.ca.gov asked me to update my password. So I did, asked it to save the password LP had suggested. And bingo, it saved something else. I used to copy and save the new password on notepad (erasing after making sure I could re-login), and I forgot this time. I used to do this because I found this to be a consistent problem. Is there something I'm doing that is wrong?

Christian S

Hi @Anand Patel! You're definitely not alone in running into this — government sites like ftb.ca.gov sometimes have login and password-change forms that don't play perfectly with password manager autofill, and it can cause exactly what you're describing.

Here's what likely happened and how to avoid it going forward:

What probably went wrong
When you updated your password, LastPass may have captured the old password or an interim value during the form submission — especially if the site uses a multi-step or non-standard form layout.

A more reliable workflow for tricky sites

1. Generate the password first — Use the LastPass password generator before you start the change process, and copy it to your clipboard
2. Paste it manually into the "new password" field on the site
3. Complete the password change on the site and confirm you're successfully logged in
4. Then manually update the entry in your LastPass vault — open the vault, find ftb.ca.gov, edit the password field, paste the new password, and save

This way you're in full control of what gets saved, and you're not relying on the auto-capture to get it right on a site that doesn't always cooperate.

For right now — since the wrong password was saved and you're not sure what's in your vault:

• Log in to ftb.ca.gov using whatever method you have access to
• Do another password reset to set a fresh known password
• Then manually save it in LastPass using the steps above

The notepad habit you had wasn't wrong — it was actually smart for sites like this. The manual vault update method above replaces that need more securely.