Can't access dashboard after changing salt keys

Do you have a backup that you can restore from? Does your hosting provider have one?

Are you able to signup under a new user, and through the database copy your “correct” password to your admin that you can’t login under now?

It sounds like a backup restore would be the best option though.

@inclusivehost-john
Thanks for answering!! ??

The password is correct… It ‘just’ says that I don’t have rights enough to login when I try login-in, which is weird. I don’t have a backup yet but thought about backing something up, yes I can access the database. I thought about two solutions:
1. back-up the wp-content folder (I don’t know if it’s enough), then erase the wp-site I can’t login through my database and install it again, copy the content and try changing the salt and unique keys again without changing the wp prefix.

2. Add a new user through the database and try to login – however I don’t know how to create an user. Have to try.

I can see at the database my user has a user activation key, which is the same as the pass key (something very big and not the code I’ve chosen – could it be it’s one of the salt keys?), but I don’t know if I can change that (nor if it will help).

With step 2, you would do so through typically:

Yourdomain.com/wp-login.php?action=register

(replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain)

You would then look in the database under the pass field for this new user, and copy this encrypted password into your actual admin user’s field which isn’t working.

I would suggest backing up what you have at first though so you don’t make it worse. Good luck!

Ok… I’ve just created an admin user… but it shows the same message: “I don’t have enough rights to see this page” after I hit ‘login’ button… Darn it! Why is it so complicated?? Have already sent a request to hosting server about backup…

How can I backup the database without having the problem with my code again? Can I only backup the files, templates, plugins, without backing up the user?? If I erase, reinstall my wordpress site and restore the same db that currently doesn’t let me login, will I still have the same problems??

>> If I erase, reinstall my wordpress site and restore the same db that currently doesn’t let me login, will I still have the same problems??

You would have the same issue because the hashed password won’t match up with your key in wp-config.php

All of your blog posts, comments, etc are stored in the database too. You may want to try and just export the users table only, but that’s just a guess. No luck from your provider about backups?

Have you tried clearing your browser’s cache and cookies yet? That tends to always solve this particular problem.

I have tried removing cookie and clearing browser’s cache (even resetting Safari). My provider can get a backup upon a fee of 350USD!! So I’ll try to exhaust other options first. ??

Just a thought, have you tried changing the salts a second time to a new random pair?

If that doesn’t work out, it’s always worth seeing if perhaps a plugin or theme conflict is getting in the way, certainly worth more than giving up $350 for a backup at least. Try manually resetting your plugins. If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

If that does not resolve the issue, access your server via FTP or SFTP, navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the default theme to activate and hopefully rule-out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

Just wondering what the fix was. I have the same issue.