Can’t access wp-admin because WordPress login not working? You probably don’t need us to tell you how frustrating it may be to be locked out of your WordPress dashboard.

You may not be feeling so well right now, but there is some good news. Most of the time, it’s only a short-term issue, and after you figure out the underlying cause, you’ll be able to access your WordPress dashboard without losing any of your site’s content in no time.

We’ll explain why you can’t access wp-admin in this post, along with a solution. In order to accomplish this, we’ll detail a number of probable problems along with their corresponding fixes.

Once this process is complete, you will be able to visit the wp-admin and get your website up and running.

Click the list below to get directly to the solution if you at least have a general understanding of what’s wrong. On the other side, you can use this list as a type of troubleshooting guide if you have no idea what is going on.

Common causes of wp-admin access issues. Why is WordPress login not working?

You should eventually identify the issue and restore functionality if you go through the issues and remedies that apply to you one at a time:

1.Your username and password are invalid for login.

2.Your security plugin is blocking you.

3.Your WordPress login URL was modified.

4.Your WordPress memory allotment is insufficient.

5.Your WordPress site is having a problem (White Screen of Death, 500 Internal Server Error, etc.)

6.Your.htaccess file has a problem.

7.The URL for your website is incorrect.

8.The file permissions are broken.

9.Your primary WordPress files are messed up.

To be sure the issue is real, you should delete your browser’s cookies and cache before taking any further action.

Before you believe there’s a major reason why you can’t access wp-admin, you should rule out a simple problem with your web browser’s cache and cookies. Clearing the cache in your browser can occasionally solve strange issues (which means there was never any problem with your WordPress site itself).

To clean the cache on your Chrome browser:

1.In the top-right corner, click the “three dots” symbol.

2.Navigate to the “More tools” menu.

3.Choose Delete browsing data.

4.Make certain that the browser’s cache and cookies are both chosen.

5.To avoid having to go into every website again, select Clear data and then leave the Time range as the Last Hour.

Let’s move on to the genuine problems if that didn’t solve the issue.

Also Read: How To Customize The Default WordPress Login Page

1.Your login credentials are incorrect

One of the main reasons why WordPress login not working is incorrect login information. While this may seem obvious, we have all experienced it at some point.

You may have forgotten your password, another site administrator may have changed it for whatever reason (if you have several admins), or, in extremely rare cases, a hostile actor may have compromised your account and changed the password.

In that case, let’s go ahead and set up a new password for you.

Do this first: Utilize the WordPress password reset functionality

If your admin credentials are incorrect, you should use WordPress’s password recovery feature as your first step. On the WordPress login page, there should be a “Lost your password?” link.

If this option was successful, you should receive an email that allows you to reset your password and log in.

No worries if the password reset feature doesn’t work, manually resetting your password from your hosting account will take a few additional steps.

If that fails, then reset your password manually by modifying your database

If the password reset email is not functioning, you can manually change your password or create a new WordPress admin user by using phpMyAdmin to edit your site’s database (which virtually all WordPress hosts offer).

2.Your security plugin is blocking you

If you’re using a WordPress security plugin, you may be blocking yourself accidentally. Numerous WordPress security plugins, for instance, contain a function to limit login attempts by temporarily banning you if you input an invalid username/password an excessive number of times.

You have two alternatives here:

1.You can wait; often, you will be blocked for a certain amount of time before you can attempt again.

2.You can manually deactivate the security plugin in order to immediately log in.

How then can you remove your security plugin if the WordPress dashboard is inaccessible? You may utilise FTP (or cPanel File Manager, if your host has that).

Connect to your website’s server to begin. Then, head to /wp-content/plugins and locate your security plugin’s folder. For instance, this page displays the limit-login-attempts-reloaded plugin. You might also see wordfence, etc:

Rename the folder with the suffix -disabled. This will disable the plugin automatically, and you should be able to log in again.

After logging in, you may rename the folder and remove the -disabled suffix. After that, you may activate your security plugin:

3.You (or a plugin) modified the login URL

Changing the URL of your login page is a frequent WordPress security tip that can be accomplished with a multitude of plugins.

It’s a fantastic tip…until you forget the new URL and… WordPress login not working! To resolve this issue and restore your old WordPress login URL, you can do the same procedures as when manually deleting a security plugin:

1.Connect to your server via FTP or the file manager provided by your provider.
2.Navigate to the /wp-content/plugins folder and locate the plugin’s folder that is modifying the login URL.
3.Rename it with the suffix -disabled.
4.Use the default WordPress login URL to log in.
5.Rename the directory and activate the plugin again. Remember your own URL for logging in this time!

4.Your WordPress memory quota is insufficient

If your WordPress site runs out of PHP memory, several aspects of your site may malfunction and wordpress can’t login with correct password

This problem can also occur occasionally, making it more difficult to diagnose.

If your website’s memory is at limit, you may be unable to access wp-admin. In scenarios with less memory consumption, you may not face any difficulties.

To resolve this issue, you can ask your hosting support to increase the PHP RAM limit.

5.You’re seeing the white screen of death or 500 Internal Server Error

Up until this point, the troubleshooting methods have assumed that your WordPress site is operating normally and that anything is preventing you from accessing the WordPress dashboard.

But another common reason why you might not be able to get to wp-admin is that your site is having some kind of problem. The two largest ones include:

1.White screen of death — as the name implies, you encounter a blank white screen when you attempt to log in.
2.Internal server error — when you attempt to log in, you will encounter a message similar to “500 Internal Server Error.”

If you correct these problems, your website will once again function and you will be able to log in.

6.There’s a problem with your .htaccess file.

Your .htaccess file handles crucial tasks such as redirection and the layout of your permalinks. This file can block you from accessing your WordPress dashboard if something goes wrong. Chrome may display an error similar to ERR TOO MANY REDIRECTS when you attempt to visit your dashboard. Or, it may provide an additional difficulty.

Delete the existing .htaccess file and force WordPress to produce a new one.

1.Connect to your server through FTP or cPanel File Manager to accomplish this.

2.Download the existing. htaccess file to your local machine for safety. After creating a backup of the existing .htaccess file, delete it from your server.

If you are able to log in after deleting the file, navigate to Settings Permalinks and click Save. This causes WordPress to produce a new .htaccess file. You do not need to modify any settings; simply click Save.

If you are still unable to log in, the issue was likely not caused by your .htaccess file. You can re-upload the backup and attempt some of the other options on this list.

7. Your site URL is wrong

Your site’s URL determines the URL that WordPress “thinks” is correct. If your site’s URL is incorrect, you will be unable to log in because WordPress will attempt to redirect you to the incorrect URL when you visit the WordPress login page.

If your website is https://yoursite.com, WordPress may attempt to redirect you to https://NOTyoursite.com/wp-login.php. If your site’s URL is incorrect, you will be locked out of WordPress.

Connect to your server via FTP or cPanel File Manager to resolve this issue. Then, edit the wp-config.php file and add the following lines above the /* This is it; stop editing! Happy publishing. * / line:
define(‘WP HOME’,’https://yoursite.com’); define(‘WP SITEURL’,’https://yoursite.com’);

Replace https://yoursite.com with the correct URL for your WordPress site.

8.There’s something wrong with your file permissions

A less frequent issue involves the file permissions on your server. Incorrect file permissions for the wp-login.php file and the wp-admin folder can prevent you from accessing the WordPress dashboard.

Usually, all WordPress files should be 664 (except for the wp-config.php file) and all folders should be 775.

FTP allows you to check and modify file permissions by connecting to your server. Then:

1.Ensure that wp-login.php is set to 664 permissions.

2.Ensure that the wp-admin folder’s permissions are set to 775.

9.There is a problem with your core WordPress files.

The file wp-login.php, which handles the WordPress login procedure, may include a bug, however this occurrence is uncommon.

To ensure this is not the case, you must take the following steps:

1.WordPress.org – download the latest version of WordPress.

2.Extract of the ZIP file

3.Use FTP or your host’s File Manager to upload the wp-login.php file to your server.

4.Choose to overwrite the existing file version on your server when prompted.

Still unable to log in to wp-admin? Finally, restore from a backup.

You can always attempt to restore your website from a functional backup if all else fails. Although this is kind of a nuclear option, it may be able to fix tiny site-specific issues.

Conclusion

Being locked out of WordPress is never a pleasant experience. However, using the troubleshooting instructions in this article, you should have been able to resolve the problem and regain access to your WordPress dashboard.

You may wish to educate yourself on WordPress troubleshooting in order to be better prepared in the future. WordPress login help.