Here are some useful tips to keep in mind if you ever get an unexplained rejection of your codewords.

1) Check for cap lock - codewords are case sensitive

2) Make sure you are entering just the codeword (example "swanky00") without any spaces before or after. Do not enter the entire line "swanky00 has RID 0000"

3) This is one I just learned: Make sure your logon was correct

explanation

 It is important to know that the school login (charlest, in our case) is case sensitive.  If the login were entered incorrectly (say CHARLEST or Charlest), you might be able to logon successfully but then have your passwords rejected. It's a peculiarity of the EK pages that one can sometimes login to the SMOC pages without exactly the correct case in the login and password, but then it tosses it out once they try to enter a codeword.  At that point no one remembers exactly how they logged in.  The teacher may have to completely shut down Internet Explorer or Netscape and even re-boot the computer before re-entering and logging in again:  Some versions of both programs "remember" who someone said they were.