Weird user account issues, possible database corruption?

  • bobdonderwinkel

    (@bobdonderwinkel)


    4 years ago

    Hi there,

    I am having some weird WordPress account issues which I can’t seem to solve myself. In essence new user accounts can not be created or deleted, nor can any details of existing accounts be changed (like the Role).

    Luckily enough I was able to create a local copy of the website with the same issue. I tracked part of the problem down to the database wp_users table where apparently the ‘Auto Increment’ setting on the ‘ID’ column is missing. When I add that new users can be created but still no details can be changed, most likely because the wp_usermeta table is also involved

    I’m a bit clueless a t the moment and very hesitant to start altering the database of the live website.. I already tried the usuals tricks like disabling the plugins and theme and that unfortunately did not work but I will try again to be sure.

    The details of the server and WordPress website are

    PHP: 7.4.14
    MMySQL: 5.6.49
    Wordpress: 5.6.2
    Theme: Custom theme using Twenty_Fifteen
    Plugins:
    + Classic Editor
    + Download Monitor
    + Duplicator
    + Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
    + MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress
    + Ninja Forms
    + Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields
    + ShortPixel Image Optimizer
    + Smush
    + Unlist Posts & Pages
    + W3 Total Cache
    + Wordfence Security
    + WP Google Maps
    + Yoast SEO

    Does anyone perhaps have an idea how to solve this or how this could have happened in the first place?

    There is a working Administrator account I’m dreading what happens if that one get’s corrupt as well

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • RossMitchell

    (@rossmitchell)

    Suggest that you create a staging website on a subdomain, same WP version as your live site, take a database backup of the empty website. Install your theme and plugins, activate plugins. Take another database backup.
    Take a database backup of your live site.

    You now have several database backups, make copies of them and strip out the table data contents, just leaving the descriptions of the database tables.
    Compare the different database descriptions, this will tell you which settings etc are missing from your live site. Fix it.

    As to how this has happened, this is a riddle. Are you sure that your web hosting is secure ? Suggest changing ALL your passwords: Hosting, website database, website admin.

    Thread Starter bobdonderwinkel

    (@bobdonderwinkel)

    Hi Ross,

    Thanks for the detailed feedback, that sounds like a good approach. I was hoping for somewhat of a ‘quicker fix’ of course but I will try out these steps.

    As a side note there was a security breach a couple of months ago after which the Wordfence plugin was installed. No account issue came up directly after that though.

    If nothing works the website, including the custom theme, can be installed anew in a fresh WordPress installation I guess. But that would be a lot of work obviously, especially to port all content over. So perhaps someone here has some more suggestions?

    RossMitchell

    (@rossmitchell)

    Could the create new users and related problems go back to the security breach ?

    If nothing works the website, including the custom theme, can be installed anew in a fresh WordPress installation I guess. But that would be a lot of work obviously, especially to port all content over.

    Of course the easiest way to restore the content is to restore a database backup. EXCEPT that the backup includes the glitched database field settings. Do you have a backup pre security breach ? Or is its content out of date ?
    If you look at the .SQL database backup you will see that it creates each table then loads its content, only after doing all this does it create the database keys and set the field options such as auto increment. So I would try and make a restore database load that has the table creating and data load from the recent backup, and add the tail of the ancient backup or from the tail of the empty WP with all plugins backup.

    Thread Starter bobdonderwinkel

    (@bobdonderwinkel)

    Could the create new users and related problems go back to the security breach ?

    Yes thanks and that is quite possibly although these account issues did not surface until a couple of months after the breach. Another option perhaps is that the Wordfence plugin is somehow misbehaving since that partly deals with account security and such. Disabling that one however did not solve anything.

    There are certainly pre-breach backups but the content there is quite out of date unfortunately. I’m willing to try the SQL approach you mentioned but truth be told my SQL in that regard is a bit rusty due to the ease plugins like Duplicator offer to move sites..

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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