throw new Exception(“Configured settings are invalid: Hashed passwords can not be retrieved.
So, the error was that we’ve used passwordFormat=”Hashed” instead of “Clear” or “Encrypted”. Well, That’s making a lot of sense because the “Hashed” algorithm is implemented via SHA1, which is one-way encryption so obviously I can’t retrieve the user’s original password.
The real problem(and that’s why I’ve called this behavior a “bug”) is that somewhere in the way, the original helpful exception was caught and replaced with a really bad exception which doesn’t allow the programmer to understand what have he done wrong. This is a very good example of why it’s so important to keep the exception stack with you all the way up.