403 and can't delete plugin

Ok found the plugin and deleted but still no access to anything includes admin

Oh and it’s not an IP block either as I tried access from my phone using mobile network with same result

If you have deleted the root .htaccess file and the wp-admin .htaccess file then you should be able to login to the site. Do you have any other security plugins installed that create .htaccess code? If so, rename those plugin folder names in the plugins folder so that you can login to your site.

Or the 403 error does not have anything to do with any plugins and is another problem with your website or Server. 403 errors are a standard HTTP response status code.

had to do a recursive permission change on public_html – by which time I had mucked around so much I scrapped the site and did a clean install and imported the sql and theme. I got the site rolling at 8:51 AM – what a night ??

Any suggestions on how I can ensure that doesn’t happen again – short of not installing BPS ??

Sounds like the problem was totally unrelated to BPS. BPS is a very simple plugin to remove and once these steps below are done then there is nothing else that needs to done or changed.

BPS removal steps:
1. Activate Default Mode on the Security Modes page.
2. Use the Delete wp-admin .htaccess feature on the Security Modes page.
3. Deactivate and delete BPS on the WP Plugins page.
4. Go to WordPress Settings >>> Permalinks and resave your Permalink Settings.

Unable to login into your website:
1. Use FTP or your Web Host Control Panel File Manager and delete the .htaccess file in your website root folder and the .htaccess file in your wp-admin folder.
2. Log into your website, click the BPS AutoMagic Buttons and Activate all BulletProof Modes. Or if you are removing BPS do steps 3 and 4 under BPS removal steps.

Ok so I reinstalled – activated all of the secure .htaccess options then checked Security Status and started carefully changing permissions folder by folder to 705. When I got to root folder immediately got
Forbidden

You don’t have permission to access /positions/ on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Luckily this time it was straight forward to set it back to 755. What am I doing wrong?

Oh now I understand what happened. ?? BPS makes some suggestions/recommendations for folder permissions settings, but not all Hosts allow these permission settings so on your website/Server/Host you cannot use 705 folder permssions for your root folder and MUST use 755 folder permissions for the root folder.

File and Folder Permissions Blue Read Me help button text

If your Host is using CGI, but they do not allow you to set your folder permissions more restrictive to 705 and file permissions more restrictive to 604 then most likely when you change your folder and file permissions they will automatically be changed back to 755 and 644 by your Host or you may see a 403 or 500 error and will need to change the folder permissions back to what they were before. CGI 705 folder permissions have been thoroughly tested with WordPress and no problems have been discovered with WP or with WP Plugins on several different Web Hosts, but all web hosts have different things that they specifically allow or do not allow.

Most Hosts now use 705 Root folder permissions. Your Host might not be doing this or allow this, but typically 755 is fine for your Root folder. Changing your folder permissions to 705 helps in protecting against Mass Host Code Injections. CGI 604 file permissions have been thoroughly tested with WordPress and no problems have been discovered with WP or with WP Plugins. Changing your file permissions to 604 helps in protecting your files from Mass Host Code Injections. CGI Mission Critical files should be set to 400 and 404 respectively.

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