Locked out of Dashboard Again!

You can disable plugin by renaming the folder to something else.

Inside wp-content > plugins folder. Rename “better-wp-security” folder to something else, and it will disable the plugin giving you access to your site.

On several of my websites i have 4.2.6 version and i can access the login page and the dashboard just fine, but on 1 site i just can’t access the login page at all. It just keeps redirecting me to homepage and i’m pretty sure that i haven’t enabled “Hide backend” feature. I don’t want to disable the plugin by renaming it because it’s very useful, i just want to fix this issue. Any suggestions other than renaming it?

And now, after installing and deleting it several times, it works again.

Hello

An alternative way, is to clean up the .htaccess file of all iThemes Security inserts by FTP. First you have to change permission of .htaccess file from r–r–r– (444) to rw-r–r– (644).
Now you can erase all content in between :

# BEGIN iThemes Security
... ...
... ...
# END iThemes Security

Don’t forget to save this new file to your server…

Normally, you will be able to login again to your web site with “login.php” (or “wp-admin/”) slugs…

Check, first your iThemes Security settings to find out if something is wrong.
The .htaccess file will be regenerated by clicking on any “Save all changes” button on this settings page.

I hope this will help.

Best regards

L

Lomas, tried erasing the content on the htaccess file — that did not work.

Did follow Viktor’s instructions to delete tables and rows in the DB, and that worked.

This is the 2nd lockout on the same site. Will this happen with every iThemes security update?

Ah ok good news… No i think there is just a problem we this update in particular…

You have to understand what the lockout is for. Too many login attempts or 404 errors. Reason I say this, I had a client who kept getting locked out for no reason. After we investigated, turned out her fontawasome fonts were causing 404 errors on each page, so she kept locking herself out by simply browsing her own site.

Once we fixed 404 errors, problem went away. Whitelisting yourself is good too, but fixing 404s is even better.

Plugin has been having issues for the past 2 months. Make sure you backup before updating anything, in case it breaks something.

We upgrade our clients weekly (so they don’t have to worry about it), and luckily, there were no issues since my original thread.

Yes i know very well what is about: I have exactly 27 web sites running for clients with this plugin, but i just use some features…

Me and my clients have not any kind of problems, specifically with locked outfeature for the moment…

I just try to help people (like you do) with alternatives solutions.

For your information the “white-list” feature is not working on this plugin, there is also a bug. That is one reason, i came to this forum.

Whitelisting works for me. Just tested it. Could not get locked out trying to brute force my way in since my IP was whitelisted.

From what I’ve seen over last 2 months, it seems that different features work and break based on individual wordpress setups – other plugins, themes, and hosting environment can create issues for plugin’s features.

Updates they put out can causes issues too.

I you look through the threads you will see a lot of people having trouble with white list feature…

Okay, just whitelisted my IP. Let’s see if this works with the next iThemes security update.

Get a look at the thread named “Lockout White List” feature don’t work…

lomars, thats your thread and you were warned by forum mod to not cross post.

It works on my end, I tested it. Like I said, this plugin is highly sensitive for some reason to different setups – combination of plugins, theme, and hosting environment can cause issues other people do not have.

Hi victor,

Like i was saying to you i run 27 websites, with different configs and themes… for me is not working. Can you tell us, more details, to see if we can do something, to make it work… Thanks

Lo?c