Sal W6SAL - Updated on: 2025-12-29
You ever notice how technology is supposed to make our lives easier? Yeah, me neither. Because if it did, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing about how the MeshCore mobile app has apparently forgotten how passwords work.
Now, I love mesh networking. I really do. It’s beautiful—decentralized, resilient, all that good stuff. But somewhere between the brilliant minds who built MeshCore and the mobile app developers, something got lost in translation. And that something is the basic concept that different room servers might have different passwords.
Picture this: You’re cruising along on your phone, connected to Room Server ABC. Password: “mesh123” or whatever. Life is good. Messages are flowing. The mesh is meshing. You’re living the dream.
Then you decide, “Hey, I’m gonna check out Room Server XYZ.” Reasonable, right? WRONG. Because here’s where our little friend the mobile app decides to get creative.
The app—bless its heart—has cached the password from ABC. And now, with the confidence of a person who’s never been wrong in their life, it’s gonna try to log you into XYZ with ABC’s password.
Does it ask you? Nope.
Does it give you a heads up? Negative.
Does it fail spectacularly and then act like nothing happened? BINGO.
You know what’s great about passwords? They’re specific. You know what’s NOT great? When software decides to play mix-and-match with your credentials like it’s running a password swap meet.
Here’s what happens in real life:
The beautiful part—and I mean this in the way that watching a car slowly roll into a lake is beautiful—is that this happens every single time. It’s not random. It’s not occasional. It’s reliable. If the app were this consistent at actually connecting to the right server with the right password, we’d have no problems!
Okay, so here’s where it gets even better. You ready for this?
The workaround is to just try again.
That’s right. When you get the authentication error, just… try connecting to that room server again. Maybe twice. And like some kind of digital rain dance, it often works after the second or third attempt.
I’m not making this up. The cache issue—the thing that shouldn’t exist in the first place—can be overcome by the ancient technical solution of “have you tried turning it off and on again?” Except in this case, it’s “have you tried… trying again?”
It’s like the app is a toddler having a tantrum. First attempt: “NO! WRONG PASSWORD!” Second attempt: “I SAID NO!” Third attempt: “…okay fine, you can come in.”
So yeah, when you see that authentication error, don’t panic. Don’t question your sanity (well, maybe a little). Just take a deep breath and give it another shot. The app will eventually remember that different servers are, in fact, different.
For more information and updates on this delightful feature, you can check the MeshCore FAQ. The developers are aware. They’re working on it. And in the meantime, we’re all just out here playing authentication roulette.
Look, I’m not saying the developers did this on purpose. I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy to make us all question our sanity every time we switch room servers. I’m just saying that somewhere, somehow, the concept of “clear the old password when connecting to a new server” got filed under “optional features.”
But hey, at least there’s a workaround, even if that workaround is essentially the technological equivalent of “jiggle the handle.”
Until they patch this thing properly, we’re all just passengers on the Password Caching Express, destination: Frustration Station. And the return trip requires you to try boarding two or three times.
The ticket? Free with your MeshCore mobile app download.
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W6SAL
Have you experienced the room server password shuffle? Are you also becoming best friends with the retry button? Drop a message in your favorite (eventually authenticated) room server and commiserate with fellow mesh enthusiasts. Misery loves company, especially when that company is also stuck hitting “connect” over and over like it’s a slot machine.