Unexpected failure. Password file unchanged

[Dimitry Snezhkov]

Forum,
OS HP-UX 11.0

I got this message when trying to change passowrd
for a user :
"Unexpected failure. Password file unchanged"

Neither as root nor as user
I can reset password via passwd command. I have seen this error with "shadowing"
but we are not running shadow.

( Note : the passwd file was
copied from the old machine at migration . vipw did not complain: does is perform syntax chacking or just locks
the file ? )
I would appreciate your help.

[Darrell Allen · Accepted solution]

Hi Dimitry,

Try using pwck and see what it tells you.

Darrell

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hi,
When most commands modify /etc/passwd, a lockfile called /etc/ptmp
is created so other processes cannot modify the passwd file at the same time.
Also try pwck command for checking password file
-USA..

[Michael Schubert_1]

Hello,

head the same problem and "pwck"
printed this message :

Too many/few fields

Problem was that the last line
in the passwd-file was an empty
line containing only '\n'.