Forum Discussion
Windows locked me out with the correct password – worked again after a restart
I turned on my laptop today and was hit with a Windows message saying: “The referenced account is currently locked out and may not be logged on to.” I entered my usual password—which I'm absolutely sure was correct—and got the same message again. I tried Safe Mode, same thing. Then I did a normal restart, entered the exact same password, and it worked just fine. No password reset, no unlock, no changes made.
I'm confused. Could this have been caused by a background service, another device trying to authenticate with an old password, or just a temporary glitch? Is there a way to check the logs to see why the account was locked in the first place? First time this has happened on Windows 11.
Any insight would be appreciated.
2 Replies
If you have a network drive mapped with your Windows credentials, or a VPN client set to auto-connect, and they still reference an old password, they'll keep retrying in the background.
That message means the account was locked, so even the correct password would be rejected. Restarting may simply have taken long enough for the lockout period to expire; it does not prove the restart cleared it.
You can check the logs:
- Press Win + R, enter eventvwr.msc, and open Windows Logs > Security.
- Select Filter Current Log and enter 4740,4625.
- Look around the time of the lockout. 4740 records an account lockout and may identify the caller computer. 4625 records failed logons; check the account name, failure reason, source address and process information where available.
A service, scheduled task or another device using an old password can cause repeated failures, but only if it is authenticating against that account. Failed attempts immediately before the lockout are more useful than failures recorded after it.
