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Received a call from my former employer (Billy) stating that there are issues on projectA that needs to be resolved and my assistance is needed. It's a reputable firm so I didn't ask too much questions, all I said was "I'll be at the office tomorrow" which was the next day.

Next Day:::::::::

Billy: We are still having issues concerning missing records on our reports.

Me: I thought that has been resolved. (NB: This was the same bug that made me quit due to negative reviews from the GM)

Billy: No, not yet. We have dug deep and finally found out the culprit was Itron which was not feeding in all the needed records for the reporting by skipping some dates. (Itron is a third-party software used by power holding firms to manage meter records).

PAUSE:::::
This is the software that feeds the app we developed with raw data.
This software then was my first "what if" when that bug was initially noticed (it sounded like an excuse for incompetence cus nobody believed me) and my "what if" was flipped under the carpet.
This software is the backbone of the whole project and without it our developed app is nothing but a mock-up.

CONTINUE:::::
Me: What have the team tried?
Billy: We've tried accessing the mysql database of itron so we can read the data directly but no way, because the password is unknown.
Me: Not even known by the client?
Billy: Yes, it's unknown to the client also and it seems like Itron bundled the password along with the software.
Billy: we also contacted Itron for access but was told "access to the database was available via webservice only" and looking at the webservice samples there was nothing that could give us what we want.

At this point my sitting position could tell that I am now feeling very important. :D

Billy: Our final option was to decompile itron software for traces of the db password but still no joy.

FAST-FORWARD:::::
> The password hunt
I spent close to an hour decompiling the DLLs of the software using dotNetPeek.
Scrambling through the pile of ancient codes looking for traces, I started feeling dizzy (that was how bad the code was, I kid you not!). Few scrambled hours later I found what looks like a password because the variable names couldn't help and the comments were all written in French.
Tried the password a few times on the servers MySQL WB using "root" as usrname still didn't work.
Suspected that the password might be encrypted and needs decryption so I went back to the code in search of the crypto, luckily for me I guessed right and found the library used for their cryptography.
I decrypted the code after recompiling the crypto libs which took extra hours due to the uncountable errors caused by decompilation.
DBName: bdboreas
DBUser: root
DBPassword: JWB******
(This is the static credentials Itron uses for all their clients - A multi-million dollar company! Holy Molly :O)

I search the db for the expected meter records but couldn't find any. Even the database naming convention was worst than the code (you see tables like d, fg, ty, pp1, pp2) same with the column names, if this was a design pattern or open catastrophe I couldn't tell. At that point everything translates back to square one as I felt the whole scenario appeared like playing a Chinese crossword puzzle as I can clearly see the picture but to me conveyed no meaning, I wasn't ready for that, so I just flipped into Billy's office.

Billy: Solution?
Me: Not really but I was able access Itron db nevertheless I couldn't find the needed records.
Billy: Are you sure you searched well enough?
Me: (wrote the db credentials down in a piece of paper and left)

Got home, checked my phone, saw some thank you emails (From Billy, from the angry GM, from my former team) stating they're grateful for my assistance from what seemed like a stalked project and my input is greatly appreciated.

The mails where warming but the bitter truth of it all is that I find it hard to see them going anywhere until they contact Itron for an updated software which exports accurate data for consumption until then they'll still be draining their blood trying to create a quick fix for someone else's bug.