403 Forbidden when adding new user

  • drewilson23

    (@drewilson23)


    2 months ago

    Hi,

    I’m running into an issue when trying to add new users in WordPress. When I attempt to create a user, I get the following error:

    “Forbidden — You don’t have permission to access this resource.”

    I am logged in as an Administrator, and this was working correctly as recently as last week—I was able to add new users without any issues then.

    Nothing obvious has changed on my end since, so I’m not sure what’s causing the permission error now. Any insight into what could trigger this or where I should start troubleshooting would be appreciated.

    Thanks in advance!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Nebu John – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudevsupport14)

    2 months ago

    Hi @drewilson23,

    I hope this message finds you well.

    The “403 – Forbidden” error generally points to a server-side or security-related change rather than a WordPress issue.

    Do you have any Security related plugin active on this website? If yes, can you please deactivate the plugin temporarily and see if that helps to resolve the issue?

    Please bring this issue to the notice of the hosting support team and see if the Web Application Firewall at the hosting end causes an issue. Additionally, please check if there are any permission issues and if the server has enough storage left to run the database operations.

    If the website is running on an Apache server, please check the .htaccess file and ensure there aren’t any conflicting rules added.

    I hope that helps to diagnose the issue further. Please feel free to ask here if you require any clarification.

    Best Regards,
    Nebu John

    Thread Starter drewilson23

    (@drewilson23)

    2 months ago

    Hi Nebu,

    I don’t currently have any security-related plugins enabled on the site. I tried adding a new user again today, and it’s working normally now, so I’m not entirely sure what was causing the issue before.

    I appreciate the troubleshooting steps and will keep them in mind in case it happens again.

    Thanks

    Pankaj Mehla

    (@pankakmehla)

    2 months ago

    @drewilson23

    Check if a plugin like Wordfence is creating this issue. Try deactivating

    check if .htaccess is not corrupted

    wp-admin/ must be readable & executable by the web server

    enable logging only (no display):

    define('WP_DEBUG', true); define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true); define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

    Reproduce the error, then check:

    /wp-content/debug.log

    Look for:

    • Permission denied
    • REST API blocked
    • Nonce verification failed
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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