WebSphere to Oracle - doesn't accept correct password

Just FYI. I am guessing you are running WebSphere in Network Deployment mode.This behavior you're experiencing is actually by design.

The reason for it is that the "Test Connection" button you see on the admin console, invokes the JDBC connection test from within the process of the Node Agent. There is no way for the J2C Alias information to propagate to the Node Agent without restarting it; some configuration objects take effect in WebSphere as soon as you save the configuration to the master repository, and some only take effect on a restart. J2C aliases take effect on restarts.

In a Network Deployment topology, you may have any number of server instances controlled by the same Node Agent. You may restart your server instances as you'd like, but unless you restart the Node Agent itself, the "test connection" button will never work.

It's a known WebSphere limitation... Which also exists on version 7.0, so don't be surprised when you test it during your next migration. :-)

If this happens to anyone else, I restarted WebSphere and all my problems went away. It's a true hallmark of quality software.

Oftentimes when people tell me they can't log into Oracle 11g with the correct password, I know they've been caught out by passwords becoming case-sensitive between 10g and 11g.