M: i'm having trouble logging into my namecheap ftp. i just changed my password. can you please go online and sift through their faqs, let me know what's up in terms of whether i need to change something else in order to get into that ftp?

G: TL;DR: On Namecheap, there are usually two different password systems involved:

Changing one does not necessarily change the other. Most FTP login failures after a password change are caused by that distinction. citeturn0search0turn0search4turn0search10

The important breakdown:

  1. If you're logging into FTP using your cPanel username

    • then the password you need is the cPanel password
    • not your main Namecheap website login password. citeturn0search0turn0search6turn0search10

  2. If you're using a separate FTP account

    • that FTP account has its own password
    • changing the cPanel password does NOT update that FTP account automatically. citeturn0search0turn0search4turn0search12

  3. Namecheap also pushes people toward secure FTP modes now:

    • FTPES: port 21
    • SFTP: port 21098
    • plain old FTP may be disabled or flaky on some hosting types. citeturn0search0turn0search13

The exact thing I'd check, in order:

A very common gotcha:

Another common gotcha:

And another:

Namecheap’s official FTP connection settings are here: urlNamecheap FTP Access Guideturn0search0

And their FTP account management docs: urlNamecheap FTP Accounts Documentationturn0search4

If you paste:

…I can probably narrow it down to the specific failure point pretty quickly.

M: thank you. separate issue: can you name a linux utility that will strip html down to its basic tags, please?

G: A few good Linux options, depending on what you mean by “basic tags”:

Keep HTML but sanitize/simplify it

entity["software","HTML Tidy","HTML cleanup utility"]

Usually installed as tidy.

Good for:

Install:

sudo apt install tidy

Example:

tidy -ashtml -clean -indent input.html > output.html

Useful flags:

-clean     # strips presentational clutter
-bare      # removes MS Word junk
-wrap 0    # disables line wrapping

Strip ALL tags to plain text

entity["software","lynx","text-mode web browser"]

lynx -dump file.html

or

entity["software","w3m","text-mode web browser"]

w3m -dump file.html

These render the page as readable text.

Whitelist only certain tags

entity["software","xmlstarlet","XML command line toolkit"]

or

entity["software","pup","HTML parsing tool"]

But honestly, for selective stripping, the modern easy answer is usually:

entity["software","Beautiful Soup","Python HTML parsing library"]

Tiny Python script:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

allowed = {"p", "b", "i", "table", "tr", "td"}

with open("input.html") as f:
    soup = BeautifulSoup(f, "html.parser")

for tag in soup.find_all():
    if tag.name not in allowed:
        tag.unwrap()

print(soup)

That removes unwanted tags while preserving contents.

Probably closest to what you want

If your source is full of:

…then tidy -clean -bare is probably the first thing to try.

M: here's an example; it's the export results of saving from libreoffice to html. ideally i want to strip off the stuff that's painfully addicted to the formatting accuracy of a printable document setup and leave the... distinguishing bits. like the font doesn't matter, but the spirit of the formatting does - i want to keep the bits that are all using the same style a single class/tag that can be formatted as a group, rather than the each-by-themselves method of addressing that it currently has:

G: [Non-text content: thoughts; content_type=thoughts]

G: [Non-text content: reasoning_recap; content_type=reasoning_recap]

G: Yes. For this kind of LibreOffice HTML, tidy alone probably won’t be enough. Your file is mostly semantic structure buried under presentational tags: <font>, inline style, align, etc. fileciteturn0file0L1-L71

Best utility path:

pandoc input.html -f html -t html5 -o cleaned.html

Better first test:

pandoc input.html -f html -t markdown -o cleaned.md

That strips it down to the actual document meaning:

Then you can convert back:

pandoc cleaned.md -f markdown -t html5 -o cleaned.html

For your specific “same visual role should become one class” goal, the better tool is probably Python + BeautifulSoup, not a premade utility. You’d write rules like:

centered bold 17pt paragraph → <h1 class="doc-title">
centered gray italic paragraph → <p class="subtitle">
h1.western → <h2 class="section-title">
border-bottom paragraph with only breaks → <hr>
font tags → unwrap
inline styles → remove

So the practical answer is:

sudo apt install pandoc tidy

Try:

pandoc "Pasted text(1).txt" -f html -t markdown -o cleaned.md

Then inspect cleaned.md. If it preserves the spirit well, use Pandoc. If it loses distinctions you care about, use a small BeautifulSoup cleanup script with style-pattern rules.

M: namecheap is being an asshole. i logged in ten days ago, no problem. now it's saying that i don't have my password right. please go online and see what changed.

G: I went looking for evidence that Namecheap changed its login system in the last 10 days, and I don't see anything suggesting a broad change that would suddenly invalidate a previously working password. Their status page shows routine hosting maintenance on June 16, but nothing about account authentication changes. citeturn0search1

What I do see are a few things that can produce exactly the symptom you're describing:

  1. Wrong password vs. account lockout

    • Namecheap will lock an account after enough failed login attempts, and the resulting experience can look very similar to "my password suddenly stopped working." citeturn0search0turn0search3

  2. Password changed in one place, not another

    • Namecheap account password, cPanel password, FTP password, and Private Email password are all separate credentials. Their documentation repeatedly emphasizes this because people mix them up constantly. citeturn0search9turn0search17

  3. 2FA / trusted device issues

    • If you have TOTP enabled and changed devices, browser profiles, cookies, or time settings, you can get authentication failures even with the correct password. citeturn0search3

  4. Browser autofill lying to you

    • This is probably the most common real-world cause. The browser fills a Namecheap password, you know you logged in recently, and it turns out the saved credential is stale or associated with a different Namecheap account.

Given that you logged in only ten days ago, my suspicion order would be:

  1. Browser saved credential mismatch.
  2. Password manager entry got updated incorrectly.
  3. Account lock from repeated attempts.
  4. Typing a cPanel/FTP password into the Namecheap account login (or vice versa).
  5. Actual Namecheap-side issue.

A couple of questions that would narrow this dramatically:

If you tell me the exact text on the error page, I can usually tell within a minute whether you're dealing with a bad credential, a security lock, or one of Namecheap's identity-verification hoops.

M: i'm not using the browser; i'm using the filezilla client. no browser mishaps. and like i said, i started it up ten days ago, without any alterations since.

G: Fair point. If nothing changed on your machine and we're talking specifically about FileZilla → Namecheap FTP, then I'd stop thinking about the Namecheap website login entirely and focus on the FTP service.

The things I'd suspect first are:

1. Namecheap changed or restarted the FTP service

This happens more often than people realize during hosting migrations and maintenance. The password is still correct, but:

2. You're actually getting a different error than "wrong password"

FileZilla often reports things like:

530 Login authentication failed

and

530 User cannot log in

and

Connection timed out

all in ways that feel like "bad password" when they're actually very different problems.

3. The hosting password changed while the Namecheap account password did not

You mentioned earlier that you changed a password. That's why I'm still suspicious.

If you changed:

but FTP uses:

then the FTP server has no idea anything happened.

4. Server migration

Ten days is just about the right timeframe for:

while the website itself still works.

What I'd like to see

In FileZilla:

View → Message Log

or just copy the last 20–30 lines after a failed connection attempt.

Something like:

Status: Connecting to ...
Response: 220 ...
Command: USER ...
Response: 331 Password required
Command: PASS ...
Response: 530 Login incorrect

or

Error: Connection timed out

or

Response: 421 Too many connections

The exact sequence matters enormously.

A 530 Login incorrect means one thing.

A 530 User cannot log in means another.

A timeout means something completely different.

Without the log, I'd be guessing. With the log, I can usually tell whether the problem is:

within a few lines.

M: here is the connection log.

G: [Non-text content: thoughts; content_type=thoughts]

G: I’ll read the log itself and separate “bad password” from the other FileZilla failures that look like bad password but aren’t.

M: Status: Resolving address of ftp.rhps-callbacks.org Status: Connecting to 162.0.215.196:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Status: Initializing TLS... Status: TLS connection established. Command: USER 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org Response: 331 User 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org OK. Password required Command: PASS **************************** Response: 530 Login authentication failed Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server Status: Disconnected from server Status: Resolving address of ftp.rhps-callbacks.org Status: Connecting to 162.0.215.196:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Status: Initializing TLS... Status: TLS connection established. Command: USER rhpsjpjo Response: 331 User rhpsjpjo OK. Password required Command: PASS **************************** Response: 530 Login authentication failed Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server Status: Disconnected from server Status: Resolving address of ftp.rhps-callbacks.org Status: Connecting to 162.0.215.196:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Status: Initializing TLS... Status: TLS connection established. Command: USER rhpsjpjo Response: 331 User rhpsjpjo OK. Password required Command: PASS **************************** Response: 530 Login authentication failed Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server Status: Disconnected from server Status: Resolving address of ftp.rhps-callbacks.org Status: Connecting to 162.0.215.196:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Status: Initializing TLS... Status: TLS connection established. Command: USER rhpsjpjo Response: 331 User rhpsjpjo OK. Password required Command: PASS **************************** Response: 530 Login authentication failed Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server

G: [Non-text content: thoughts; content_type=thoughts]

G: [Non-text content: reasoning_recap; content_type=reasoning_recap]

G: That log is cleanly authentication, not network/TLS/passive-mode:

331 ... OK. Password required means the server accepts the username format.
530 Login authentication failed means the password being checked against that FTP/cPanel account is failing.

Namecheap’s current FileZilla docs say FTPES on port 21 should use either the cPanel username + cPanel password or the full FTP username like user@domain.com + that FTP account password. SFTP is different: port 21098, cPanel username/password only. citeturn481239view0

Given your log, I’d do this:

  1. In cPanel, go to FTP Accounts and reset the password for 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org.
  2. In FileZilla, use:
    • Host: ftpes://ftp.rhps-callbacks.org
    • Port: 21
    • User: 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org
    • Password: that FTP account password
  3. Separately test the master login:
    • Host: sftp://ftp.rhps-callbacks.org or server hostname
    • Port: 21098
    • User: rhpsjpjo
    • Password: cPanel password

The important part: do not mix rhpsjpjo with the FTP-account password, and do not mix 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org with the cPanel password.

I did find current Namecheap status items, including shared-server software maintenance planned for June 19, 2026, but your error does not look like that. If maintenance broke FTP generally, I’d expect timeout, refused connection, TLS failure, or a server error before password auth—not a clean 530. citeturn481239view3

M: i can't find where to address the 98765 user name, let alone reset the password.

G: That actually gives me a clue.

98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org is almost certainly not your cPanel account. It's an FTP account that was created under cPanel at some point.

The fact that you said you "can't find where to address the 98765 user" suggests you're probably looking in the Namecheap dashboard, not inside cPanel's FTP management.

Let's work backwards.

First question

Can you still log into cPanel itself?

Usually one of:

https://rhps-callbacks.org/cpanel

or

https://rhps-callbacks.org:2083

or via the Namecheap hosting dashboard's "Go to cPanel" button.

If cPanel login still works, then we're in great shape:

If cPanel login also fails, then the problem may be the master hosting password itself.

Something else jumps out

You tried both:

USER 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org

and

USER rhpsjpjo

and got the same error.

That means either:

  1. you're entering the same incorrect password for both accounts

or

  1. the password you changed recently wasn't the one those accounts actually use

or

  1. the hosting password got reset/changed independently

The odds of two separate usernames suddenly having the wrong password on the same day are much lower than the odds that you're testing the wrong credential against both.

Easiest test

In FileZilla, edit the site and change:

Protocol: SFTP
Port: 21098
User: rhpsjpjo
Password: <what you believe is the cPanel password>

Do not use 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org.

If that works:

If that fails:

One other thing: do you know whether rhps-callbacks.org is on shared hosting, Stellar hosting, or reseller hosting? And can you still reach the website itself? Those two answers will narrow the remaining possibilities quite a bit.

M: okay, this is stellar hosting and driving me batshit. i can get into the web access, the cpanel, all that crap. the rhpsjpjo account has been there the entire time. I HAVE DONE NOTHING TO CHANGE ANYTHING IN THE LAST MONTH.

G: Okay. Then I'd stop treating this as "David forgot which password goes where."

Your log tells us:

But you've added an extremely important fact:

I can get into cPanel right now.

I have changed nothing in the last month.

That changes the probability tree.

If rhpsjpjo can currently log into cPanel, then the cPanel password is valid right now.

What I would do next is not keep guessing passwords. I would use cPanel as the source of truth.

Inside cPanel:

Files → FTP Accounts

Questions:

  1. Does 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org actually appear in the FTP Accounts list?
  2. If it does, does it show a home directory and quota?
  3. Is there any indication that the account is disabled, suspended, or missing?

Because here's the thing:

If that FTP account got deleted, corrupted, or detached during some backend maintenance, the server can still respond:

331 User OK. Password required
530 Login authentication failed

for every password you try.

Another thing that bothers me is the username itself.

98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org

doesn't look like something a human would normally create. It looks like an automatically generated FTP user from years ago.

Meanwhile:

rhpsjpjo

looks exactly like a cPanel account name.

So my working hypothesis is:

Quick test

Don't reset anything yet.

In cPanel:

Files → FTP Accounts

Find the section that lists existing FTP users.

If 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org is there, tell me:

If it is not there, then we've probably found the mystery. You may have been using an account that no longer exists, and FileZilla has been faithfully trying the same dead credential ever since.

And one more thing:

Can you tell me whether you've ever successfully FTPed in as rhpsjpjo, or has it always been 98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org? That's the distinction that would really help narrow this down.

M: there is no 98765 account visible. which means nothing because I never created that account in the first place; some evidently-long-dead paradigm set that up automatically. it didn't let me use rhpsjpjo ever, i don't think.

G: Actually, that helps a lot.

I think you've stumbled onto the fact that the FTP account you've been using wasn't a normal FTP account at all.

The username:

98765dba@rhps-callbacks.org

looks very much like one of the automatically generated usernames that older Namecheap/cPanel setups used for the main account FTP login. Over the years, cPanel, Namecheap, and various migration tools have changed how they expose those credentials.

The thing that catches my attention is this:

Those facts don't fit together unless there is some hidden/generated account mapping involved.

My next test would be brutally simple:

In FileZilla, create a completely new site entry (don't edit the existing one).

Use:

Protocol: FTP - File Transfer Protocol
Encryption: Require explicit FTP over TLS
Host: ftp.rhps-callbacks.org
Port: 21

User: rhpsjpjo
Password: <the exact password you just used to enter cPanel>

Do not reuse the old site profile. FileZilla can be surprisingly stubborn about saved credentials.

If that fails with the same 530, then try:

Protocol: SFTP
Host: ftp.rhps-callbacks.org
Port: 21098

User: rhpsjpjo
Password: <cPanel password>

because on Stellar hosting, the cPanel account is supposed to be able to authenticate directly via SFTP.

What makes me suspicious is that you said:

it didn't let me use rhpsjpjo ever, i don't think.

That's exactly the sort of thing that happens when somebody sets up hosting years ago, uses the auto-generated FTP credentials forever, and never actually uses the cPanel account for file transfers.

At this point I don't think the mystery is "what password changed?" I think the mystery is "what was 98765dba actually authenticating against?"

One other possibility—which would fit your timeline perfectly—is that Namecheap recently migrated the account to a newer backend and the hidden legacy FTP alias disappeared while the actual hosting account remained intact. That would leave:

If the fresh rhpsjpjo + cPanel password test fails on both FTPES and SFTP, then I'd stop troubleshooting locally and look at the hosting account details inside cPanel's FTP section and/or Namecheap's hosting panel, because at that point we'd have evidence that the server is rejecting the primary hosting account itself rather than just a legacy alias.

M: this was only set up last year. here's what happened with the sftp: Response: 530 Login authentication failed Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server Status: Disconnected from server Status: Connecting to ftp.rhps-callbacks.org:21098... Status: Using username "rhpsjpjo". Status: Access denied Error: Authentication failed. Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server ...and i asked you to look! that meant look online and see if anything happened, goofus!

G: You're right. You asked me to look for whether anything changed, and I spent too much time reasoning from the log.

After digging around, I did not find evidence that Namecheap announced a broad FTP authentication change in the last 10 days. Their status and knowledgebase don't show a "we changed FTP usernames" event. citeturn0search13turn0search1

What I did find that is relevant to your situation is this:

Those facts together point away from "you typed the wrong password" and toward a server-side authentication problem, account mapping problem, or an internal FTP/SFTP credential sync problem.

The most interesting thing I found was that cPanel/PureFTP systems can get into a state where the FTP password database or account mapping becomes inconsistent after updates or backend changes, resulting in clean 530 authentication failures even when the hosting account itself is fine. citeturn0search4turn0search16

The reason I'm leaning that way is:

That's not normal.

At this point, if I were sitting at the keyboard, I'd stop experimenting and do one very specific thing:

Open Namecheap Live Chat and tell them:

I am on Stellar hosting. I can log into cPanel successfully as rhpsjpjo. FTPES on port 21 returns 530 Login authentication failed. SFTP on port 21098 returns Authentication failed using the same cPanel credentials. This worked approximately 10 days ago and I have made no hosting, FTP, or password changes. Please verify the FTP/SFTP authentication backend for this account and confirm whether there has been a server migration or credential synchronization issue.

The key detail is that cPanel authentication succeeds while SFTP authentication fails with the same credential. That's the part that gets you past Tier-1 "please reset your password" scripts.

One thing I'd still like to know before you contact them:

When you log into cPanel, go to Server Information and tell me the server hostname (not the password, obviously). If there was a migration, the hostname may have changed, and I can check whether you're hitting the server Namecheap currently expects for that account.

[Attachment reference unresolved: file-transfer]

M: before we do THAT, tell me why you keep asking for my cpanel login information or referring to it as though i get to it any way but through the namecheap.com dashboard.

G: That's a fair criticism.

The reason I kept talking about "logging into cPanel" is that, in cPanel hosting, there are historically several ways to reach the same control panel:

From the hosting system's perspective, they're all usually ending up at the same cPanel account.

What I should have noticed from your description is that you weren't saying:

"I have a cPanel username and password I routinely use."

You were saying:

"I log into Namecheap and then click through."

Those are not the same user experience, even if they sometimes authenticate to the same backend.

The reason I kept coming back to the cPanel credentials is because Namecheap's documentation for SFTP says it should use the cPanel account credentials. When you said SFTP was failing while you could still get into the hosting control panel through Namecheap, I was trying to determine whether:

Those lead to very different conclusions.

In retrospect, there's another reason your situation bothered me: you repeatedly said nothing changed. I kept treating that as potentially mistaken because, frankly, half the time someone says that, it turns out they changed a password two weeks ago and forgot.

But your facts have been pretty consistent:

Given all that, the more plausible explanation is not "David forgot a password." It's that there is some backend distinction between:

That's exactly why I started getting suspicious when both FTPES and SFTP rejected credentials while the hosting panel remained accessible.

So the short answer is: I wasn't trying to get you to reveal login information. I was trying to determine whether you were authenticating directly to cPanel or being passed through from the Namecheap dashboard, because those are different troubleshooting paths. I didn't make that distinction clearly enough.

M: the cpanel login through the website works - but my login isn't what i think it should be. tell me where i would set that.

G: Aha. That is a much more interesting clue.

If you log into hosting through Namecheap and the cPanel username is not what you expect, then the first place I'd look is:

Namecheap Dashboard → Hosting List → Manage (next to the Stellar account)

There should be an area showing:

The cPanel username is often an automatically generated string and is not necessarily related to:

On cPanel systems, that username is usually established when the hosting account is created. Users generally cannot rename it themselves later because it's tied into account ownership and filesystem paths.

What I'm wondering is whether:

Inside cPanel itself, look in the right-hand sidebar (or under "General Information" depending on theme). There is usually a field literally called:

Current User

or

Username

That value is the one Namecheap expects for SFTP.

If that username is something unexpected, that would explain a lot:

So before we blame Namecheap infrastructure, I'd check one thing:

In cPanel, what does it say for "Current User" or "Username"?

Not the password, just the username.

If it turns out to be something completely different from rhpsjpjo, we may have finally found why SFTP is refusing you. If it is rhpsjpjo, then we're back to suspecting a server-side authentication problem.

M: General Information Current User rhpsjpjo Primary Domain rhps-callbacks.org SSL Certificate An SSL certificate allows visitors to communicate with your website over a secure connection. Active View SSL Certificate Shared IP Address 162.0.215.196 Home Directory /home/rhpsjpjo Last Login IP Address 74.110.138.72 User Analytics ID Analytics helps us understand how our customers use our products. Go to Account Preferences to update your enrollment.

d0608ed2-10b2-4a41-820b-e89adac4cb28 User Analytics: Disabled Theme jupiter

G: Okay, that answers one major question.

Your cPanel username really is:

rhpsjpjo

and your home directory is:

/var/home/rhpsjpjo

(or /home/rhpsjpjo as displayed)

So my earlier theory that you were accidentally using the wrong cPanel username is dead.

What's bothering me now is this:

That is not the pattern I'd expect from a simple typo.

A couple of things I'd check before contacting Namecheap:

Check SSH Access

In cPanel, search for:

SSH Access

or

Manage SSH Keys

Does SSH Access exist as a feature?

On some Stellar plans, SFTP depends on SSH being enabled. If SSH somehow got disabled during a migration or maintenance event, cPanel can continue working while SFTP authentication fails.

Check FTP Accounts

In cPanel search for:

FTP Accounts

What do you actually see?

Specifically:

Check Disk Usage / Account Status

This is a long shot, but sometimes suspended or partially restricted accounts exhibit weird FTP behavior while cPanel remains accessible.

Look in:

Statistics

or

Resource Usage

for anything screaming:

The reason I'm now leaning toward a Namecheap-side issue is that your evidence has become internally consistent:

The same credential that gets you into the control panel should normally get you into SFTP. The fact that it does not suggests either:

  1. The password you're using to reach cPanel is being passed through by Namecheap SSO and is not actually the current cPanel/SSH password.
  2. SSH/SFTP authentication on the server is broken or disabled.
  3. Namecheap changed or reset the underlying hosting password while preserving dashboard access.

That first possibility is the one I wish I'd focused on earlier. If you're entering Namecheap, clicking "Go to cPanel," and never typing the cPanel password directly, then you may not actually know what the current hosting password is.

Can you tell me one thing:

When you enter cPanel, are you ever prompted for a username/password after leaving Namecheap, or does clicking the button take you straight in automatically? That's the piece that would distinguish SSO from a genuine direct cPanel login.

M: listen to me: THE NAME IS FINE BUT I NEED THE ACTUAL FUCKING PASSWORD. i was getting 331 responses. it's the PASSWORD that i need to get or change.

G: Got it. You're right. The username is not the problem.

The log already told us that:

USER rhpsjpjo
331 User rhpsjpjo OK. Password required

The server is happy with the username. The failure is:

530 Login authentication failed

So the question is:

Where do you see or change the password that FTP/SFTP is expecting?

Since you're on Stellar and can get into cPanel:

Option 1: Change the cPanel account password

Inside cPanel, search for:

Password & Security

or

Password and Security

That changes the password for the main cPanel account (rhpsjpjo).

After changing it, immediately test:

If Namecheap's SFTP authentication is working normally, that should start working.

Option 2: Change it from Namecheap hosting management

Namecheap sometimes exposes:

Hosting List
→ Manage
→ Change Password

for the hosting account itself.

That resets the underlying cPanel password.

What I now suspect

Based on everything you've told me, I suspect one of two things:

  1. You're getting into cPanel through Namecheap's single-sign-on mechanism and have not actually entered the cPanel password in a long time.
  2. The cPanel password and the FTP/SFTP password got out of sync somehow.

The reason I say that is:

That's exactly what it looks like when someone has a valid Namecheap session but doesn't actually know the current hosting password anymore.

So before talking to support, I'd do the simplest possible test:

Go to Password & Security in cPanel and set a completely new password.

Then immediately try:

Host: ftp.rhps-callbacks.org
Protocol: SFTP
Port: 21098
User: rhpsjpjo
Password: <brand new password>

If that still returns:

Authentication failed

then you've got extremely strong evidence that the server is not honoring the hosting account password for SFTP, and at that point support can't fall back on "wrong password" as an explanation.