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I have just taken over a clients website to carry out future maintenance and updates. I am not sure if the previous developer left on a bad note but the thought has crossed my mind. I simply cannot log in to /wp-admin no matter what solution I try

Here is what I have tried thus far (and I am sure I will forget some). Logged in to phpMyAdmin and:

  • Changed previous password and selected MD5. - Incorrect password on login page error
  • Changed previous password and did not select MD5 - Incorrect password on login page
  • Changed previous email to mine and tried to log in with e-mail - Unknown email address. Check again...
  • Tried to use the lost password feature - No positive result on login page
  • Tried to disable plugin folders - No positive result on login page
  • Replaced the .htaccess file - No positive result on login page
  • Checked file permissions for wp-login.php, wp-admin folder - No positive result on login page
  • Replaced wp-login.php - No positive result on login page
  • Added a new user to the _users table - No positive result on login page
  • Added 2 new entries for wp_capabilities and wp_user_level to _usermeta - No positive result on login page
  • Cloned ALL the previous developers entries and changed the user_id to my newly created one - No positive result on login page I have tried putting some suggested emergency scripts - No positive result on login page. I get no other errors, no connection issues, or screen of death. Everything looks like either the user doesn't exist or the password is wrong.

So at this point I have no clue what else it could be. I am a front end guy so that's probably where my limitation is for the moment. Does anyone have any suggestion as to how else I can get the client's website back? Thank you very much for your time and help!

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  • have you tried WP CLI or the emergency.php from .org? Any changes to WordPress core can easily be undone by overwriting it with a fresh copy from wp.org. Note though that this isn't a discussion forum so you need a specific question phrased so that an answer written can be accepted as the canonical correct answer for that question. If you just want suggestions/discussion then the question might be closed
    – Tom J Nowell ♦
    Commented Apr 11 at 19:17
  • I dont know how to use the WP CLI but I did create the emergency.php from .org, put it in the mu-plugins folder and nothing happened. My details on that script were triple checked
    – FrontEndGuy
    Commented Apr 11 at 19:25
  • you're meant to visit emergency.php in the browser it isn't a plugin wordpress.org/documentation/article/reset-your-password/…, also note that if you've changed the URL of the site without doing a proper search replace of the database that too could break login since any session it created would not be valid for the site. This is as far as I'm able to help you though, it's looking very likely that you don't have a clear question and this question is too localised, you need a specific question it can't be an open ended investigation
    – Tom J Nowell ♦
    Commented Apr 11 at 19:34
  • Sorry yes I confused that with an alternative but I did try the emergency.php in the browser, it didn't work. The site was handed-over to me yesterday so from my side I have not moved or changed any URLs. Wordpress manager(Softaculous) said the database was not connected but the site is still rendering as normal. Considering all that I have said, I guess my question is, how do I fix this login issue? Thank you for your time Tim.
    – FrontEndGuy
    Commented Apr 11 at 20:05

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