Unable to reset WordPress password

  • Resolved jamesyo0304

    (@jamesyo0304)


    7 years, 8 months ago

    Greetings! I recently helped a friend set up a WordPress site on his host at Nearlyfreespeech. We set up a database using their phpadmin tools. We were successful getting it up and running. A few days ago he was working on his site in his WordPress dashboard (I believe the last thing he was working on was a plugin called Jetback) when he was logged out. He tried to log back in but was unsuccessful. Today I discovered that he unable to login into any of the tools we used to setup his new site. Long story short, I was able to restore his access to Nearlfreespeech, and to his phpmyadmin login. But we were unable to log him back into the WordPress dashboard, and we can only access his site by using the short name, and not with his domain name.

    Here the steps we took to attempt a successful login.

    – emergency.php script
    – deleting all themes and plugins that had been installed after the initial installaton
    – using his phpmyadmin tools to change the password for WordPress
    – deleting and reinstalling WordPress on his server (did not delete wp-config or wp-content)
    – sitting for a long moment looking stern

    None of these methods were successful. I hope I have given enough information to be of use.

    I have set up and am running to WordPress sites of my own for about a year with no problems.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • You mean Jetpack, right? no biggie..not related to admin password, it can be disabled.

    When you say he cant login to his wordpress dashboard, you mean his main control panel to his site where he manages his site/theme/pages, etc. Correct?

    Thread Starter jamesyo0304

    (@jamesyo0304)

    Yes Jetpack is that I meant to type. In any event that plugin has been deactivated.

    You have it right. He can’t login into his dashboard, his site control. He was logged out in the middle of a session, and could not log back in.

    through phpmyadmin you can change your admin password.

    go to the wp_users table and find your admin username. For that row, update user_pass. For the “Function” select MD5. Then type a new password and save. You should be able to get back in. I use mysql direct but I remember a few years back I used phpmyadmin and that is what I did.

    Thread Starter jamesyo0304

    (@jamesyo0304)

    through phpmyadmin you can change your admin password.

    I have already done this, as I noted in my original post.

    As an aside, comparing his site to one of mine, I notice that his site redirects from https://www.example.com to example.com. Neither of my sites do that, as I did not prefer it. However, all of the settings on the server seem to be identical. Except that TlS appears to be enabled but not configured. I have no recollection of doing anything with TLS when we set up his site. This morning I tried an .htaccess file that would force WWW.

    #Force www:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^qmckee.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.qmckee.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

    Perhaps I do not fully understand how it works because that did not work. the site (www.qmckee.com) still redirects to qmckee.com. And the result of that is “server DNS address could not be found”. I can get to his page with the short name quinton.nfhost.com, but can not login to WordPress.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by jamesyo0304.
    Thread Starter jamesyo0304

    (@jamesyo0304)

    <SOLVED>

    I fixed this by taking a shotgun approach. I doubt if my experience will help anyone else, but who knows?

    • First I deleted all WordPress files on the server and reinstalled
    • I configured WordPress from scratch
    • I removed the alias from the site
    • I edited the database to reflect removal of the alias

      • After that I was able to login to WordPress using the site’s short name. After adding the alias back, and editing the database once again all was back to normal.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by jamesyo0304.

    That was my next reply. I dont think you had to go thru the reinstall but when I was accessing myexamplecrap.com it wouldnt work but https://www.myexamplecrap.com it would. Mine was a .htaccess issue. Glad it works!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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