Joy
(@joyously)
There are two parts to a WordPress site.
One is the files, which is the WordPress software and also plugins, themes, and any media you uploaded.
Two is the database, which holds the text you wrote for each page, the users, the comments, and also all the options for WP and plugins and themes.
The admin menus are dynamically generated to match the current user’s role. An admin user by default has all capabilities, so they can see all the menu items.
A subscriber by default has just read capability, so there aren’t many menu items.
If your site was compromised, the user capabilities could have been changed. We have seen a hack like that. I scanned your site at https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/ but it didn’t find any malware.
If you can, create a new admin user to make sure you have access. If you can’t, there are ways to edit the database to change a user role or to create a new user entry.
If your backup has just the database, you can restore that. Manipulating the files (different versions of WP) is easy using your site’s control panel File Manager or FTP. You don’t need a new site to do that. There is also the Reinstall button on the admin Updates page. (This affects WP files only.)
Hello,
My first suggestion would be to restore the backups you have. If you could set up a staging site and restore/migrate the backup there to test it out. THen you could go from there.
Hope that helps
Joy
(@joyously)
You can try things on a sandbox: https://wpsandbox.net/
Thank you Joy and Yobani,
I have the following links in my dashboard:
Dashboard
Jetpack
Posts
Media
Comments
Profile
Tools
Templates
Is this what a subscriber rather than an administrator would see? Joy, you wrote “If you can, create a new admin user” and I can’t find a place that I can do that. Should I have another link on this page which would normally allow me to do that?
Just an additional item.
The dashboard has the message “WordPress 5.6 is available! Please notify the site administrator.” Is this what a subscriber would see rather then an admin?
Joy
(@joyously)
You can see the roles and capabilities : https://wordpress.org/support/article/roles-and-capabilities/
Click on that sandbox link I gave, and generate a site. You will see what the admin should see.
Thanks again for the help from both of you.
I added a new administrator through phpMyAdmin. If anyone else has this problem and wants to try this fix, you can get good instructions by searching for “How to add an administrator to your WordPress by using phpMyAdmin”
