Staudey It fails in a different way though, because it is the right password
That is quite likely true. But this has now taken on far more importance than it's worth (to me).
I just created this VM using the 4.3 .ISO. This is the sixth time I've entered just <Enter> for a password, and the sixth time I was returned to the login screen. Every other password I tried did the same thing, although everything else also displayed a "bad password" error message. I was looking for a password that would work, and never found one. The "right" password didn't work, either.