Unable to log in as administrator
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Hello!
I tried to log in to a site today that I administer infrequently (last login was probably around February). I have a different computer now but I don’t think that’s the issue.
There are only two users: an administrator and an editor. I am able to log in as the editor, but don’t have powers to do anything with the users.
When I try to log in as the administrator user, it just keeps reloading the login page (no error message or error page). I have clicked the “forgot password” link (even though I was sure about the password), it emailed me the reset link, I reset the password, and still can’t log in. (I did this twice and even copy/pasted the password from the create page to the login page).
This is with Firefox. I also tried in a private/incognito window with the same result, and in another browser (Seamonkey).
I am not sure how to proceed. Here are the stats requested:
PHP version 7.4.29
MariaDB 10.3.34
Wordpress 5.9.3 (that I know of – based on the last update email I got)I do have access to the site’s cPanel (so phpMyAdmin).
Help?
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If you are able to log in with Editor account and not with Administrator account, and you checked in other browser, then there is strong possibility that you are providing wrong password.
Following are the steps to reset password via PhpMyAdmin:
1. Go to wp_users table.
2. Edit the required Administrator account(might be with user id = 1)
3. In ‘user_pass’ field select function as ‘MD5’ and in value section type your password e.g. 12345678.
4. Click go.Now try to log in via administrator account.
Thank you so much for your reply!
Unfortunately it didn’t work 🙁
I reset the password by following your instructions (several times) and get the same result – the login screen just reloads, with no error. When I try to type the wp-admin URL manually (just in case it wasn’t forwarding me) I get redirected back to the login page. So I definitely don’t get logged in.When I type a wrong password, or reset the password in the DB using a function other than MD5, I see an error: “Error: The password you entered for the username (actual username) is incorrect. Lost your password?”
But when I type the correct password, I don’t get the error – I just don’t get logged in. I’m not sure what could be wrong.
Edit: I’m not sure if this is normal, but when I set the password in the database using MD5, and click Go, it changes to something like “d534b96c9c131039a98126891ec878eb” but when I refresh the table after a login attempt, it changes again to something like “$P$BWD6EkI8RbwdJ63xZNEK93WetWcHZz1” (actual values changed for safety). Why does it change itself after a login attempt? Is this expected?
When I copy and paste the editor’s password in the DB, I get the same result – it doesn’t work. Just reloads the login page with no errors.
I enabled debugging and in the debug.log I see this error:
[29-Aug-2022 13:08:24 UTC] WordPress database error Duplicate entry '0' for key 'PRIMARY' for query INSERT INTOwp_usermeta(user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (1, 'session_tokens', 'a:1:{s:64:\"1647d8bccea0994d27df45e4813d8ba39286fcb4c357587de16cf4e6df2305e0\";a:4:{s:10:\"expiration\";i:1661951304;s:2:\"ip\";s:13:\"138.58.198.149\";s:2:\"ua\";s:70:\"Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:104.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/104.0\";s:5:\"login\";i:1661778504;}}') made by wp_signon, wp_set_auth_cookie, WP_Session_Tokens->create, WP_Session_Tokens->update, WP_User_Meta_Session_Tokens->update_session, WP_User_Meta_Session_Tokens->update_sessions, update_user_meta, update_metadata, add_metadataSo seems like something wrong with the database?
Edit: there is a row in the wp_usermeta table that has a umeta_id of 0 and a “session_tokens” value for “meta_key”, but the user_id field for that row is 2. So the error is correct, there is already a row with ID of 0. But shouldn’t it get a non-zero ID automatically?
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