Locked out of login Urgent Help needed

  • Resolved rnsiinfo

    (@rnsiinfo)


    7 months ago

    Hi,
    I am the webmaster for our volunteer neighborhood support group. I have been locked out of my login probably because of failed password attempts. Simple brainfart moment where I forgot it since it used to be on password remember which I turned off for security reasons then couldnt remember what it actually was lol. Problem being, its now sent a password reset to an old email I no longer have. It was one on a personal domain I let go because I cannot afford it anymore so am now using google emails.
    I cannot see anywhere where I can contact wordpress.org support other than paid which again, I cannot afford!
    I am desperate here since its a community volunteer based website. I CAN prove I am the website owner with letters if needed from both the community group coordinator as well as the website host managers. How do I regain access to the website ? I did not see anywhere that I had set up alternative login via phone. I thought I had infact changed the email to a different one. I am also getting emails from the wordpress domain since I did use another email for general website notifications but it still seems to think password reset goes to the email I no longer use.
    I do hope someone from wordpress org can help me with this with account recovery?
    website is [ redundant link removed ]
    Julie

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • abletec

    (@abletec)

    7 months ago

    Hello, Julie, and welcome. Unfortunately, wordpress.org is just the WordPress software. It doesn’t have access to former emails, etc, nor can it assist in regaining access to a website that uses its software.

    There are several ways to go about regaining access to your website. Perhaps the easiest is to contact your hosting provider and see if they can help. It looks like your hosting provider is InMotion hosting, & they say they’re available 24×7.

    Your hosting provider likely also has a program called PHPMyAdmin (or something similar) that allows you to go into your database & actually change the password. Before attempting this, you *really* need to back up your database. I mean it–you *really* do. Oh, yeah, and did I forget to mention you should *always* back up your database before making edits to it? I didn’t? O, good. Then you know what to do. Ironically enough, your hosting provider has an article here:

    https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/wordpress/resetting-your-wordpress-admin-password/

    Let’s see if any of that helps. Please let us know.

    Thread Starter rnsiinfo

    (@rnsiinfo)

    7 months ago

    Thank you very much for letting me know this and taking the time to help. I will get in touch with InMotion and request them to do a backup and reset the password for me. I will let you know if I am successful.
    Much Thanks

    Julie

    abletec

    (@abletec)

    7 months ago

    Please let us know either way. The hosting provider’s job is to provide the infrastructure for your website, so if their hardware or software isn’t at fault, they may or may not help. It’s a bit of a gamble.

    George Appiah

    (@gappiah)

    7 months ago

    I cannot see anywhere where I can contact wordpress.org support other than paid which again, I cannot afford!

    There’s no such thing as paying WordPress.org for support.

    WordPress is a 100% volunteer project: both the software development and user support are handled by volunteers. The only official support from WordPress.org is the public community support forum where you are now — there’s no option to pay WordPress.org for support.

    Thread Starter rnsiinfo

    (@rnsiinfo)

    6 months ago

    George, I was confused between wordpress.com and wordpress.org either way, despite wordpress.org being volunteers, I found nothing to help me in the way of a basic wiki/support section with a serious wordpress issue that locked me out of being able to administer my wordpress website other than to come on here. So glad Abletec responded with a link from InMotion on how to deal with it. Volunteers or not, they should at least have a wiki/support section that would cover these serious issues since they do provide the platform. A concern is that wordpress decided to lock me out and sent a reset password to an OLD email. The email in wordpress as admin is my current active one that gets the site notifications but not the password reset?. It should not have happened. I had to edit the MySql database user information to get back in. I could still be locked out had Abletec not replied. The whole horrid situation now has me interested in looking at alternate platforms.

    George Appiah

    (@gappiah)

    6 months ago

    I usually wouldn’t respond to a post like this, but I simply want to correct/clarify a couple of issues raised here:

    I found nothing to help me in the way of a basic wiki/support section with a serious wordpress issue that locked me out of being able to administer my wordpress website other than to come on here…

    Volunteers or not, they should at least have a wiki/support section that would cover these serious issues since they do provide the platform.

    WordPress has more than ample support documentation: in fact, so much that many new users complain about getting lost and not knowing where to start:

    End-user documentation: https://wordpress.org/documentation/

    Developer documentation: https://developer.wordpress.org/

    Resource are also availabe in other formats including courses (Learn WordPress), videos (WordPress.tv), blogs, etc.

    Specifically, here’s WordPress’ OFFICIAL documentation covering your issue, the ultimate source of most of the blog posts on the subject (including the InMotion link you were given): https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/reset-your-password/

    That said…

    1) No support documentation can cover 100% of every possible scenario
    2) WordPress’ documentation only covers the core WordPress software, and not the tens of thousands of plugins and themes. Themes and plugins have their own documentation hosted by their individual developers.

    That’s why the community support forum exists, monitored by volunteers like @abletec who assisted you.

    I could still be locked out had Abletec not replied.

    In other words, you didn’t get support… until you got support. And that’s a terrible thing indeed 😀

    And if @abletec had not been around to assist you at the time, I bet another support volunteer would have answered your question… perhaps even linking to the official support article on the subject.

    A concern is that wordpress decided to lock me out and sent a reset password to an OLD email. The email in wordpress as admin is my current active one that gets the site notifications but not the password reset?. It should not have happened.

    I think you’re mistaken here.

    The “Administration Email Address” in SETTINGS => GENERAL is for what the name says: site administration — site-wide notifications sent to the site administrator.

    Password resets are for INDIVIDUAL USERS, and there’s no point in sending password reset emails to the site administrator. Instead password reset emails go to whatever email address is in the individual user’s profile.

    (On a single-user site, the distinction isn’t that obvious. But think of a site with multiple users: should password reset emails go to the site administrator? Shouldn’t the email go to the individual user who is trying to reset their password?)

    When setting up WordPress, the same email address is used as both the first user’s email address AND the site administration email address. But that’s where the relationship ends: changing address at one place does not change the other.

    WordPress has no notion of “OLD” or “NEW” email address when sending emails: it sends emails to whatever email address you have stored in the software. If you changed your address but never updated your user account’s email address in the software, I’m not sure how this would be the fault of WordPress (or any other platform for that matter) 😀

    Good luck!

    Thread Starter rnsiinfo

    (@rnsiinfo)

    6 months ago

    Im not impressed that you mock and laugh at the horrid experience I have had, whether I have not understood everything or not.
    Being sensible about this, I had a basic question regarding email addresses entered into WordPress, it seems you can enter a few depending on their role perhaps, because I can even show you the proof with the email I got verifying I had updated my email address. I was even getting the site notifications on it and can show that evidence BUT when the password was reset due to failed login attempts it sent it to one previously used that somehow was still in MySql. WordPress still had “that” one. I wont call it the “old” one since you mock my understanding of terminology. I see this as some sort of glitch. If there was a genuine support team I could show them this as it could be as Im saying, a glitch that they need to evaluate.
    I stand by my comment that had Abletec not responded” How long otherwise would I have been hanging on here waiting for someone else to respond?
    These are simple questions I had based on my level of experience.
    Im over with this conversation and am grateful Abletech responded with a solution.

    abletec

    (@abletec)

    6 months ago

    Hi, again, Julie. You know, I’m not precisely certain what happened here, of course. What I’m thinking might have happened (& my dad said thinking was totally above my pay grade), is that it’s possible to have 1 user subscribed using 2 or more email addresses. What I mean by that is I might use my GMail address when my username is abletec & I’m an administrator. I may use a domain email when my username is Jackie & I’m a subscriber. I might use a different email address & a username of jackie_author when I sign in as an author. Obviously these users are 1 in the same (I don’t have split personalities, at least I don’t think so :)), but the WordPress software, of course, doesn’t understand all that. Basically, for the software, 1 username = 1 email address, & there can be 1000 users subscribed as me on the site provided I could come up w/that many usernames & email addresses. I don’t know if you were subscribed to the site under more than 1 email/username combination, but, if so, that may explain what occurred.

    The administrative email is located in ‘Settings > General’.

    WordPress is just software that’s used to build websites. It’s distributed globally and powers many millions of sites. But no records of individual sites are kept by the software. Websites built w/WordPress don’t “phone home” as it were, to wordpress.org. There is no central repository for that sort of thing. The entity that is aware of your site is your hosting provider. That’s kind of like a landlord–you pay them so your site can exist on their server. So I would encourage you, by all means, that if you ever run into trouble again, to contact us here on the wordpress.org support forums, but also your hosting provider, InMotion, who does actually have access to your site, which you did. Some hosting providers take the stand that if the problem has nothing to do w/their hardware or software, they won’t help. Others are far more generous in their support policies. Sounds like yours falls into the latter category, & I’m glad.

    I completely understand how\ frustrating & scary it can feel to get locked out of your website. I’ve had it happen a time or 2 in my 14 years of working w/websites & WordPress, but I at least knew what to do, though when I was a beginner it still felt pretty frightening. When you don’t, it’s gotta be pretty upsetting.

    I’m glad I was able to help. You take care, ok? & don’t hesitate to come up here again if you ever need us.

    icebear007

    (@icebear007)

    4 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi, I need to get into my wordpress account as I need to change my existing administrator email address. My website is hosted by Bluehost. They sort of did change my email address, but wherever they made these changes it didn’t change the email address in SETTINGS<General. The original email address got deactivated over night and I didn’t know. Now I have to try and change this invalid email address. I also don’t know the password for it. But it wouldn’t help, because I can no longer receive those emails. Bluehost said that they can’t make this change, that this has to be done through the WordPress account. I didn’t even remember that I had set up this WP account a few years ago, because I always log in through Bluehost. Couple of days ago I set up a contact form on my website and there I saw that my admin email address was still the original address, even though Bluehost had made some changes. From the text you might gather that my tech skills are basic and very limited. But advice would be greatly appreciated. So, I can get into my account and to my website but I need to change this administrative email address.

    A thought occurred to me but I don’t know whether it would be possible. Should I not be able to change this email address, could I export my website, open a new WP account and start again? Would this original email address be part of the copy and even if I start again I would basically import this problem into a new set up?

    Thread Starter rnsiinfo

    (@rnsiinfo)

    4 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi Icebear,
    The link Abletech gave in first reply helped me alot. in the InMotion list, I chose the MySql option. I simply logged into the control panel and followed the directions. I was worried It screw something up but it was easy to follow and worked.

    and Abletech, thanks again. That makes sense re wordpress not able to distinguish uses/admins the way youve suggested. I too have used wp for decades and never had that happen before!

    Im actually having a play around with doing websites using straight html and css without the need for wordpress. I learned html back in the 90s. But when wordpress came along, you get caught up with doing it the easy way, which in some ways with wordpress limitations, isnt always the easy way! Take for example trying to add a script line to a page header, you have to have a plugin just to be able to do that When I can write it up in html within a minute! You cant change a theme that easy, without loosing all your settings. But if you can write html yourself, its a simple change in the style.css. But for now, Im still using wordpress, always will since I do websites for other organisations and since its the most known platform, I set it up in there so if I ever stop, someone else can take it over easier than trying to understand a hand-written website.

    regards
    Julie

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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