Symptoms

1. Cannot log into Confluence or Crowd Console
2. Restoring Passwords To Recover Admin User Rights via Database does not grant access 
   
   

The following may show in the atlassian-confluence.log:

com.atlassian.crowd.exception.PasswordEncoderNotFoundException: The PasswordEncoder 'null' was not found in the Internal Encoders list by the PasswordEncoderFactory
at com.atlassian.crowd.password.factory.PasswordEncoderFactoryImpl.getInternalEncoder(PasswordEncoderFactoryImpl.java:37)
Stack Trace:[hide]
com.atlassian.crowd.exception.PasswordEncoderNotFoundException: The PasswordEncoder 'null' was not found in the Internal Encoders list by the PasswordEncoderFactory
at com.atlassian.crowd.password.factory.PasswordEncoderFactoryImpl.getInternalEncoder(PasswordEncoderFactoryImpl.java:37)
at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.AbstractInternalDirectory.authenticate(AbstractInternalDirectory.java:339)
at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.AbstractInternalDirectory.processAuthentication(AbstractInternalDirectory.java:179)
at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.AbstractInternalDirectory.authenticate(AbstractInternalDirectory.java:147)
at com.atlassian.crowd.manager.directory.DirectoryManagerGeneric.authenticateUser(DirectoryManagerGeneric.java:276)
at com.atlassian.crowd.manager.application.ApplicationServiceGeneric.authenticateUser(ApplicationServiceGeneric.java:102)

Diagnosis

Running query against cwd_directory_attribute shows missing entry for attribute_name user_encryption_method. 

Cause

At this time the root cause is not verified. Please comment below if you've found a potential cause. It's possible that the incorrect license type may have been entered into license field. 

Workaround

As a workaround:

1. Shut down Confluence.

2.  Find the directory id of the Confluence Internal Directory

   select id from cwd_directory where directory_name ='Confluence Internal Directory';

3. Run this query against your database to determine if the encryption method is already set:

   select attribute_value from cwd_directory_attribute where attribute_name like '%encryption_method%';

4. If the query in Step 3 returns no rows found, run the below query against your database, replacing <your_directory_id> with the id from the previous query.

   insert into cwd_directory_attribute (directory_id, attribute_value, attribute_name) values (<your_directory_id>,'atlassian-security','user_encryption_method');

   
   

5. If query in Step 3 returns a value other than atlassian-security, run this command against the database:

   update cwd_directory_attribute set attribute_value = 'atlassian-security' where attribute_name = 'user_encryption_method';

6. Restart Confluence.
7. Recreate LDAP directories if required, and access should be restored to users.

Resolution

See workaround.