[OpenIndiana-discuss] Installation to ZFS partition on NVME drive - login issues

[Gireesh]

I downloaded and installed the latest Hipster edition Snapshot 2025.10 on an XPS 8940. I use this as a hobby OS box and multiboot various OSes. I created a zfs pool on a partition in FreeBSD and successfully installed Openindiana on it using the text installer and F5_InstallationToExistingPool.
I even copied over the EFI boot loader to the EFI partition and I am able to boot the Openindiana install via rEFInd.
Now on to my problem: when I used the text installer I was able to set a root password. However, the text installer DID NOT provide an option to setup a username and password. So when I rebooted post install, it goes straight to a graphical login window and no matter what combination of username (jack, openindiana, root) and password (jack, blank, root password I set during install, openindiana) nothing works.  I have read online that the root password expires immediately upon successful install.
I am able to boot the USB installer, mount the zpool but unable to chroot in because ahem I do not know how to do it.
I also tried CTRL-ALT-F1 etc to get to a tty but no success. When I boot to single user, it will not accept any username and password I provide.
So, what should I try next?
Regards