I forgot the password I set on a tag
The tag still reads, which is more useful than it sounds. Whether the deployment survives depends on how much of it lives on the tag. If the tags carry a stable address and the changeable part is on your server, a frozen tag costs you nothing.
It still reads
Password protection on a tag normally guards writing. Reading continues to work, so the tag keeps doing its job for anyone who taps it.
That is the difference between this and a lost key in most other contexts. Nothing is inaccessible, only unchangeable.
So before treating it as a loss, establish what you actually lost: the ability to change the content, and nothing else.
If protection was configured to cover reading as well, the position is different and much worse, and that is a deliberate setting rather than a default.
Check the two step assumption
Setting a key and switching protection on are two separate steps. A tag can carry a key that was never activated, or protection activated with a value nobody chose.
So check whether anyone actually chose the key. A batch configured hastily may be protected with a value that was left as it came, and that is recoverable.
Ask whoever configured them, and check any script or saved profile in the tool that was used. Keys are frequently sitting in a configuration file nobody thought of as a record.
Do not spend hours on this. A tag costs cents, and the labour of an archaeology exercise across a team exceeds the value of the batch very quickly.
Rescue the deployment, not the tag
The useful question is whether your system needs to change what is on the tags.
If the tags hold a redirect address you control, they never needed rewriting. Change what the address resolves to and the deployment is repaired without touching a single tag.
If your system maps tag identifiers to content on your side, the same applies: the identifier is readable and the mapping is yours.
Only a deployment that stores its meaning on the tag itself is genuinely stuck, and that is a design decision as much as a password problem.
Before the next batch
Record keys where the deployment records live, not in a person's memory or a message thread. A key that only one person knows is a key the organisation does not have.
Ask whether you need a password at all. It earns its place when strangers can reach the tag and the content must stay changeable, and that combination is narrower than it looks.
Use one key per batch rather than one per tag unless there is a reason, since per tag keys multiply this problem by the batch size.
And write a stable address to the tags so the changeable part lives on your server. That single habit turns most protection incidents into non events.
Frequently asked questions
Can a forgotten password be recovered from the tag?
No. The tag verifies the key and does not reveal it, which is the point of the mechanism.
Can I still read the tag?
Yes, unless protection was deliberately extended to reading. Write protection is the usual configuration and it leaves reading untouched.
Will resetting the tag help?
A reset is a write, so a protected tag refuses it. There is no route around the check.
Is the tag wasted?
Only if you needed to change its content. A readable tag holding a stable address remains fully useful.