Can’t Access WordPress Admin – How to Fix?
Are you having a hard time accessing your WordPress dashboard? If you can’t login to WordPress admin of your website, then you should expect some trouble. You’ll not be in a position to modify your site or rectify any errors. Worst case is, it could imply that a cyberpunk has taken control of your website and shut you out.
Nonetheless, you can set your mind at rest now. This issue is very common and many clients have been able to regain access to their WP admin. Read this guide to learn how you can fix this problem.
Why Can’t You Access Your WordPress Admin?
The best way to resolve a WordPress issue is to know the main reason why the problem is happening. In which case, you have to comprehend why you can’t access your WordPress Admin.
Below are the most common reasons why your WordPress Admin login is not working.
- Hackers have broken into your website and eliminated your admin rights
- You’ve made changes to your login URL and now it’s hard for you to recall your routine login URL.
- You’ve been locked out of your website because of making so many attempts
- You can’t retrieve your password through the retrieve password option.
- You are coming across errors on your WordPress Admin login webpage such as:
- There’s a problem with your WP site.
How Can You Fix Can’t Access WordPress Admin?
Before you start to dig deeper, you ought to clear your web browser cache and cookies. That way, you’ll be sure that the problem you’re about to handle is real.
Before making assumptions that there are major reasons why you can access WordPress admin, its best you rule out the simple issues. Weird things can take place and occasionally clearing your web browser cache solves everything.
If you want clear your web browser cache in Chrome, follow the steps below.
- Hit the three dotted icon on the upper right side of your screen
- By hovering over the additional tools menu, select clear browsing data
- Ensure that you select both browser cache and cookies
- Hit clear data
If doing that doesn’t solve your problem, then head to the real issues.
- What to Do If Your Username or Password is incorrect
Among the most straightforward reasons why your WordPress admin login is not working is that your password is incorrect. Even though this may seem basic, it can happen to anyone at one point in time.
You might fail to remember your password or another client at your website might have modified it for several reasons.
So, to get new login credentials, use the WP password reset feature.
In case your login credentials are inaccurate, you should first consider using the WP password retrieval feature. You’ll see a “forgot password” option on the WP login webpage.
If this recovery feature works, you’ll receive an email that allows you to reset your admin credentials. If the feature fails to work, there’s no need to worry. There’s an alternative method you use to reset your password. It requires you to follow several additional steps to manually restore your login credentials from your hosting account.
If that doesn’t work: Manually reset your admin credentials by editing the database
If you don’t receive a password reset email, you can also change your password manually or formulate a new WP admin user. Doing so will require you to edit your website’s database via phpMyAdmin, which is a tool that practically all WP hosts offer.
- What to do if you’ve made too many login attempts and your security plugin is be blocking you.
If you have a WP security plugin, you may be accidentally impeding yourself. For instance, numerous WordPress security plugins comprise a feature to restrict login attempts. They do this by momentarily banning you if you use incorrect username or passwords too often.
In such a case, you’ll only have two options:
- Decide to wait- Generally, you’ll only be locked out for a specific period before you can attempt to login again
- Manually disable the security plugin and log in immediately.
But how will you disable your security plugins if your WordPress admin login is not working? Use the File Transfer Protocol or a cPanel.
To start off, link to your website’s server. Then, scroll to WordPress content and head to plugins. Here, you’ll find the folder containing your security plugin.
Now, change the name of the folder and add disabled. That way, you will automatically deactivate the plugin and you can now log in again.
After logging in, you can change the folder name again and eliminate the disabled section. You can then activate your WordPress security plugin.
- Scan Your Website
When a hacker manages to take full control over your website, they lock you out right away. They eliminate your admin rights so they can they can conduct their nasty activities for as long as they possibly can.
If you’re suspicious of some malicious activities going on, scan for malware right away. Because you have no access to WordPress admin, doing scanning can be difficult. Here’s what you can do:
- If you have a malware scanner on your website, you can access an independent dashboard and do the scanning remotely. That way, you won’t need to log into WordPress.
- Employ external internet scanners such as Virus Total to perform a malware scan.
- Confirm on Google Safe Browsing if your site has been marked by Google being under malicious attack.
- Look at the security tab in your Web Analytics account.
In case you discover malware on your website, you’ll have to clean it up. Having a security plugin like MalCare will enable you clean the malware easily by hitting the Auto clean option.
If you’re not registered, you can’t install any security plugin on your website because you can access WordPress Admin. In such instances, you can use the MalCare cleanup service.
These experts will clean the malware from your website and retrieve your admin access.
Besides, you can try to search for malware on your website. Nevertheless, this is not advisable since manually looking for malware all by yourself is ineffective. It demands technological and security proficiency.
Note, if you haven’t backed up your WordPress site, it’s best you backup your website right away.
- Restore your backup
If you have taken a backup using a plugin or via your web host, it would be best if you restore your backup. Doing so will eliminate all errors that have appeared on your website.
Once you restore your backup, you’ll be in a position to access your WordPress admin page. It’s advisable that you still troubleshoot to discover the primary cause of the issue so you can fix the problem permanently.
- Disable your theme
Just like plugins, the theme might also cause your WordPress admin login not to work. And because you have no access to WP admin, you’ll have to manually disable your plugins.
- Sign into your host account and head to cPanel then to File Manager
- Head to public html and go to the wp-contents folder
- Look for the folder known as Plugins and change its name to plugins disable.
Now, confirm if you can the WordPress Admin is working. If it is, then a plugin is bring about an incompatibility or conflict problem on your website.
Log into the WordPress dashboard admin and then enable your plugins one by one. At every turn, reload your website to ascertain which plugin is creating problems.
- Troubleshoot the 500 Internal Server or the white screen of death errors.
Until now, the troubleshooting steps have been supposing that your WP website is working properly. And there’s only something preventing you from accessing the WordPress admin.
Nonetheless, another general reason why your WordPress admin is not working is that your website is experiencing some kind of error.
The two major ones are:
- WSoD or the white screen of death- As the name implies, you’ll see a white screen without any content when you attempt to login.
- Internal server error- When you attempt to log in, there will be a message on your screen that reads 500 Internal Server error.
After fixing these errors, your website will start functioning and you can now access your WordPress admin.
- Create a New .htaccess file
Being among the most sensitive files of your WP website, the .htaccess file controls incredibly vital functions. These include, redirects and the structure of your permalinks.
Occasionally, the slightest mistake in this file can damage your website and cause the WordPress admin not to work. So, if things go south with this file, you won’t be able to access your WordPress dashboard.
In this case, the solution is to remove your current .htacccess file and compel WordPress to create a new one.
Below are the steps you should follow:
- Link to your server through cPanel File Manager or File Transfer Protocol.
- Download the current .htaccess file so you can have a backup on your computer.
- After backing up the current .htaccess file, erase your server’s .htaccess file.
If you can access your WordPress admin after erasing the file, head to settings, then Permalinks and hit the save button. Doing so forces WordPress to create a new .htaccess file.
If the WordPress admin is still not working, that means that the issue perhaps was not with the .htaccess file.
Being unable to access your WordPress admin is never fun. However, if you follow the troubleshooting steps in this post, you’ll discover the problem and access your WordPress dashboard.