The new password did include a space character....but so did my old one which I never had a problem with!
thats the problem !!!
You have this problem when you change the password from the console!
The first time you created the password was when you created the wallet? Right?
I assume the gui take you password automatic between strings ( " " or something like that ) so it recognize the spaces also... but that is not the case when you change the password from console... So the second new right password was whatever you typed before the space.....
for example for:
dskjd7^^%$jjd KLHGF93
if you used only :
dskjd7^^%$jjd
you would unlock your wallet with the new json backup