Unable to connect to oracle user

I have hit a rather frustrating snag in that after installing Oracle 18c.

I have been unable to successfully create a user and then connect to it.

More precisely I can create the user but the connection keeps failing. The commands I’m using are below along with the failed connection attempt. If you have any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

I first connect to Oracle as root and then connect to the container XEPDB1

sqlplus system/password

SQL>ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER = XEPDB1;

I then do the following to create a user.

SQL>create user paul identified by Guardium111;

SQL>grant connect to paul;

SQL>grant create session to paul;

SQL>alter user paul default role all;

Everything above works without error. When I try to connect to user paul I get the following. I’m tearing what little is left of my hair out trying to understand what the issue is.

SQL> conn paul

Enter password:

ERROR:
ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied
Warning: You are no longer connected to ORACLE.