Windows Service account login failure

I installed a custom windows service on a new VM in a new environment and I am unable to ge tit to start using the domain service account. The service in question has been installed successfully on numerous other VMs (using Win server 2008, and recently, Win Server 2012 R2). In all cases, after installing successfully using the default Local System Account, and verifying that the service starts up successfully using that account, I modify the start up account to use a specified domain account as this service needs to be able to communicate with a SQL server as well as read and write from t/from various network shares.

This time, after setting up the new Win Server 2012 R2 VM, installing the service, checking that it starts ok using Local system account, and then changing the start up to use my designated service account, when I try to start the service it fails with an error:

   "Error 1069: The service did not start due to a logon failure."

I checked the credentials by using them to RDP into this VM. It was successful, so I have the correct account and password.

I checked the event log, and saw an error in the Windows Application Log:

  "Could not write to AD. Error 0x80070032."

When I googled this, it took me to this page Error Page, which seems to be describing a scenario where there was failure saving a changed password, but no one has changed the password on this account as it is a service account it is set to never expire...

Any ideas??