Last Updated on August 28, 2022 by Vikash Ekka
How to fix Error “The configuration file now needs a secret passphrase (blowfish_secret).”
You’ll see this error after every installation of phpmyadmin in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04. This error message at the bottom of the page when you first log in to /phpmyadmin (using a previously setup MySQL username and password)
How to resolve secret passphrase (blowfish_secret) ?
To resolve this issue you have to do some changes in config.inc.php. Just open /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php file OR /var/www/html/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php file (or rename config.sample.inc.php to config.inc.php if you haven’t done so yet ) and look for following code :-
$cfg[‘blowfish_secret’] = ”; /* YOU MUST FILL IN THIS FOR COOKIE AUTH! */
Replace the secret passphrase with a given below string that is at least 32 characters long:
$cfg[‘blowfish_secret’] = ‘/9pjjzGQy,]sG-NN00TDR,uiTG00Cw6M‘;
That’s it now save and exit and restart apache2 web server
server apache2 restart
Check this video if you are still facing problem.
That’s it ! log off and log back on again to phpMyAdmin and the warning should be gone. Please let me know if you are facing any issue.
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