ESS passwords are not saving correctly in SQL

Description of the Problem

We currently did an upgrade from Sage HRMS ESS 2012 (10.20) using the Migration Path to version 2015 with latest patch then 2016 with latest patch then 2017 with latest patch, landing on version 10.703701. after the upgrade we no longer are able to login into ESS, not even as MASTER. The database was upgraded at each major version upgrade.

We are able to login as MASTER only after resetting the password in the system maintenance screen.

 

What we noticed is that now the application sends the same password encrypted differently from what it is stored in the database. This was found while doing a SQL Profiler Trace between the login screen in ESS and the backend database. 

 

We searched the Sage KB and we could find anything around this problem.

 

We still have both systems old and new and when we traced the both, the old is sending the right encrypted password but the new one the encryption is different for the same username and password.

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

 PS - we also upgraded Sage 300 ERP on the same server - no issues with logging into either Sage 300 ERP or HRMS, only ESS