Auth doesn't work after removing nodes

I recently removed some nodes from my staging cluster (3>1) and may have missed a step somewhere. Now auth won’t work. If i set the authenticator/authorizer to the all versions, I can get in but if I set it to PasswordAuthentication, I can’t log in. I’ve tried following this procedure but it doesn’t work.

on the opensource docs site
/branch-5.2/troubleshooting/password-reset.html

Thoughts?

“I’ve tried following this procedure but it doesn’t work.”
Please share as many details/logs/errors as possible so that others can help you.