My website is down (403 Forbidden) and I can’t log in

Try manually resetting your plugins (no Dashboard access required). 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 SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel (consult your hosting provider’s documentation for specifics on these), 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).

Hello James,

Thank you for your help.

Unfortunately, I have done both things you suggested and the website still isn’t working and I still can’t access my dashboard.

Could you please check it again?

Ok, try downloading WordPress again, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel (consult your hosting provider’s documentation for specifics on these), and delete then replace your copies of everything on the server except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings.

Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

Hello,

I did as you suggested using cPanel from Bluehost, and still didn’t solve the problem.

I can’t log in to WordPress, I get this 403 Forbidden error message when I try to.

My website still doesn’t work, and it displays 403 Forbidden.

I didn’t make any changes from the time it was working… maybe some automatic update caused it?

Any other way I can try to recover my website? Thank you!

Ok, it’s possible that a .htaccess rule could be the source of the problem. To check for this, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and rename the .htaccess file. If you can’t find a .htaccess file, make sure that you have set your SFTP or FTP client to view invisible files.

If you weren’t able to resolve the issue by renaming your .htaccess file, we may be able to help, but we’ll need a more detailed error message. These errors are usually described in more detail in the server error log. If you have access to your server error log, generate the error again, note the date and time, then immediately check your server error log for any errors that occurred during that specific time period. If you don’t have access to your server error log, ask your hosting provider to look for you.

OK I contacted my host and they solved this problem.

However, now I have to set up the configuration, and I don’t know what to write in the different fields.

Could you guide me?

Which configuration, and which fields?