posting this in-case anyone else comes across the same
the older version of devise was using :sha1
for devise 1.4.7 I made the following configuration updates
-> found this out with script/console => User.encryptor
in the User model add :encryptable to devise
class User
devise :registerable, :database_authenticatable, :encryptable, ...
in config/initializers/devise.rb add this line
config.encryptor = :sha1