Saving plugin settings gives "You do not have sufficient permissions" error

If you get the dreaded “You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.” when saving your settings on a plugin or theme options page, the problem may well be a server setting on your webserver.

Have a look at the URL in your browser address bar. Does the URL look something like this:

http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=pluginname.php%3Fpage%3Dpluginname.php

Please note the ?page=pluginame.php%3Fpage%3Dpluginame.php bit where it shows the page query variable is being doubled in the URL.

Now have a look at the $_SERVER variable your webserver is sending. You can easily do this by (temporarily) adding the following line to your wp-config.php file:

phpinfo();

Do you run on a Linux server, but does the $_SERVER[‘SERVER_SOFTWARE’] variable show a MS IIS variant ?

If that is the case, there is an easy solution! 😉

Add the following code to your wp-config.php file anywhere above the /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ line.

/**
 * Quick fix for server software bug
 */
$_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'] = 'Apache';

I’ve created a bug report for this issue. The bug report includes a lot more information, so if you want to know more about this issue to verify it is the cause of your problems too, please read the bug report.

Hope this helps 😉 The issue costs me plenty of time to trace…. so I hope this post will save others the trouble.