MarkLogic Admin interface does not accept credentials

We are using MarkLogic 9.0.8.2

It was working fine and then suddenly when i was configuring failover for security database with master & replica forests on multiple nodes, i started getting issue with not accepting credentials.

I looked at logs and found that security database state is open

2019-07-03 09:48:36.465 Info: Forest security-01 state changed from recovering to open
2019-07-03 12:45:49.688 Info: Mounted forest security-02-replica remotely on ML03
2019-07-03 09:48:36.465 Info: Forest security-01 state changed from recovering to open
2019-07-03 12:45:49.691 Info: Mounted forest security-03 remotely on ML03
2019-07-03 12:45:49.699 Info: Mounted forest security-01-replica remotely on ML02
2019-07-03 12:45:49.700 Info: Mounted forest security-02 remotely on ML02.
2019-07-03 12:45:52.055 Info: Database Security is online with 3 forests

So looking at log, it seems, everything is fine.

so i am not sure why it is not accepting the credentials. How can i retrieve or reset admin password?

I think, i got the cause, i have followed below steps to configure failover on security database

• Created 3 master forests
• Created 3 replicas
• Attached new forests to database, clicked on attach & retire on old by default security forest
• on configuration machine, deselect old security DB and kept selection on retire checkbox And this is where i think problem is, i did not waited for merging to finish :( MarkLogic service is running, will not merge in background?

I have already restarted service, VMs multiple times.

Now question, how to solve (already loaded around 15M data) this? How to attach old security forest for merge to happen