Can't login to wp-admin

A blank page means a php error. Find the error logs on the server and read them. Other wise, we’d just be giving wild guesses. But I did see you disabled plugins first. Did you also disable mu-plugins?

I looked at the error logs and have no idea what they mean. Here’s the error I got after my last attempt to get into wp-admin (and it’s the most common one in the file):

[Wed Apr 06 17:11:35 2011] [error] [client 193.105.210.11] client sent HTTP/1.1 request without hostname (see RFC2616 section 14.23): /w00tw00t.at.ISC.SANS.DFind:)

A quick search on the web suggests that this error is nothing to worry about. And I see it on at least other domain on that server which is also WordPress and working fine.

The only other errors in the error log are of the type “Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects…”. They include the URL the IP was attempting to get to and none have wp-admin in them. The error logs are not very big so I’m not getting a lot of repeated errors everyday as people surf the site.

I have some tools which muck with the DB directly. However, I backup first and then run them. I also run them very rarely and usually only when a site is pretty new. However, when I ran that tool on this particular domain it crashed. I reran the tool and the domain appeared fine at the time – this was months ago – so I no longer have the DB backup from before I ran the tool.

Is there something in the DB related to wp-admin that I should look at?

With regard to the plugins I simply moved everything thing from …/wp-content/plugins to another directory leaving …/wp-content/plugins empty. Then I attempted to login. When that accomplished nothing I moved the plugins back into …/wp-content/plugins.

Thanks

I started adding echo statements to the …/wp-admin/index.php and admin.php files. The admin.php code seems to work fine until it gets to the auth_redirect(); statement. And the auth_redirect() appears to complete all the way to the exit(); statement at the end.

It appears the auth_redirect() should be redirecting me to:

https://irs-taxattorney.org/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Firs-taxattorney.org%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1

This URL works fine when I copy it to the browser address manually (Chrome, Win 7 Pro). Once I login the resulting page appears blank. However, this page at least has source code (which I’ve pasted to the end of this post).

The resulting URL is:

https://irs-taxattorney.org/wp-login.php

This URL works fine (i.e. the form appears and looks correct) if I manually type it in but not when I am redirected to it. The source code of both appears to identical – I have only checked this via my eyeballs. The CSS files in the source are there so missing dependencies that I can find.

Since the HTML source is identical between the 2 pages and 1 appears while the other does not I thought maybe it was just some weird browser problem. However, I tried the same sequence on Firefox 3.6.15 on my Win 7 Home Premium box and Firefox 3.6.16 on my Ubuntu Karmic box. Same results.

I have found some threads suggesting the “client sent HTTP/1.1 request without hostname…” error is a bug in the Ubuntu Lucid (10.04) but not in the older release as the thread repeatedly mentions people only have the problem after upgrading to Lucid. I’m running an older version of Ubuntu on the irs-taxattorney.org server. And there are other domains on that server (showing the same error) which are not having any problems. Those domains run the same WordPress setup targeting other topics from different DBs.

I’m tempted to think that the “client sent HTTP/1.1 request without hostname…” error has something to do with a busted WordPress/PHP redirect script of some sort. The problem is unique to this domain so I figure it must be in the files or DB for this domain.

I think my next course of action is to backup the current irs-taxattorney.org domain, copy over my WordPress files from another domain, fix the wp-config.php and see what happens.

Thanks
Gabe

[Code moderated as per the Forum Rules. Please use the pastebin]

It appears the auth_redirect() should be redirecting me to:

https://irs-taxattorney.org/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Firs-taxattorney.org%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1

Right. That’s what’s supposed to happen.

You go to wp-login.php and it says ‘He’s logged in! I will take him to /wp-admin now! WHEEEE!’

Except it’s not happening.

Check your database and wp-config.php. Some people reported where they had their site listed as https://www.domain.com in one place and NOT the other as causing this issue.

Is there something in the DB related to wp-admin that I should look at?

not that I’m aware of no.

But like Ipstenu mentioned, having the main address www and non in two places can cause things to wig out.

The admin address is built from the site address.

Yeah, I figured I was supposed to be getting redirected and I wasn’t. As far as the DB is concerned, there’s a lot of searching to be done in there. Is there a short list of items I should be checking?

I currently have this in wp-config.php:
$base = '/';
define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'irs-taxattorney.org' );

Then in the DB I have 1 entry in wp_***_site:
1 | irs-taxattorney.org | /

In wp-***-blogs I have lots of entries but the first one is:
1 | 1 | irs-taxattorney.org | / | ...

In wp-***-sitemeta the siteurl meta_key is https://irs-taxattorney.org/. In wp-***-options it listed as https://irs-taxattorney.org.

While in the middle of writing this post I found the answer!

This blog was installed at MediaTemple during a test of the cloud hosting for me. The site worked fine there but has been touchy ever since I moved it to another server. This install has had lots of little surprises for me – like my DB tool not working.

Well long story short(er) I noticed that there were no AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, etc definitions in wp-config. In all fairness to MediaTemple I mess with the WP files every so often and I may have accidentally erased them at some point. So I copied those definitions from another site and so far so good. I’ve logged into the admin panel. And I’ve been able to update the network and the plugins.

Thanks
Gabe

Honestly, I just go into the db via phpmyadmin and do a search on all tables. Click to select all, input search term, hit the button. Scan the list it spits out.

Well long story short(er) I noticed that there were no AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, etc definitions in wp-config.

*whew*

Serves us right for assuming they were in there. ??

Just a question… To see how stupid I am…

The site/domain is about 1 year old now. Would wp-admin have ever worked had those keys not been in there? In other words, could MediaTemple install a working version of WP 2.? without those keys or does it require that I screwed it up? At this point I’m thinking that I’m most likely responsible for this; sloppy and stupid.

It was probably a fair assumption to assume the keys were in there and that I hadn’t wrecked my site without noticing and then came to you for help fixing it… but … you don’t know me ??

Thanks again
Gabe

Yes. WordPress would have worked in the 2.? days without it.