Can’t login to WordPress after upgrading

Written by Sebastien

Topics: Internet

Today I upgraded my personal franchise blog from WordPress 2.1 to WordPress 2.6.2. I know, what a big upgrade… To do so, I simply went to my webhost admin panel and used their one-click upgrade service. Within 2 minutes I received an email from my host telling me that everything went fine.

So I tried to go back to my blog admin panel but it would not let me in. Every time I entered my login and password, it would just go back to the login page. I tried typing wrong password and it would give me an errror message. Going back to the homepage of the blog, I realized it was showing me as logged in. Strange.

That’s when I decided to use my secret troubleshooting weapon…. Google (I know, it’s no secret weapon). I googled “can’t login to wordpress after upgrade” and I the first result thta popped up was a page on WordPress forum.

This is the solution I used:

I had this problem after I updated my WP. Tried everything… cleaning out the cash, the cookies, changing the admin password, making changes in the wp-login.php, making changes to wp-config.php.

The last thing I tried was to clean out all of my plugins, deleting them from my ftp (after downloading everything to my computer!) and then when I tried to login I got a message that my database neded uppdating because it didn’t “fit” to my wordpress installation. An now… I can login!

But this also seems like a good fix:

I’m having this problem when upgrading to 2.6.2 with Fantastico. Here’s the process that’s been consistently working for me to correct it:

  1. Using FTP, rename the plugins folder (at /wp-content/plugins/) to plugins-old
  2. Log in as usual
  3. I am prompted to upgrade the database, so I click that button and it does
  4. Rename plugins-old back to plugins
  5. Log in again

Once I do that, everything seems to work.

If you’re having any login issue after updating WordPress, you may want to try any of the fixes.

10 Comments Comments For This Post I'd Love to Hear Yours!

  1. seosurvivor says:

    I went through that recently man.. It sucks! See if this helps: http://www.seosurvivor.com/change-is-good-but-it-can-cause-panic/

  2. Sebastien says:

    Hi Ricardo,

    Thanks for your comment but I figured it out and added the fix to this post.

    Sebastien

  3. Nick Garner says:

    Just to say – ive renamed my plugins folder and went through the database upgrade and then renamed the folder back to plugins – and it all worked fine. Annoying and disconcerting problem.

  4. Sebastien says:

    @Nick – yes, that’s what I should have done. I’ll know for next time…

  5. I just don’t update when a new version comes out, too much hassle.

  6. Best Post Ever!!!!!
    Thank you!

  7. Rebeccas.se says:

    Thank you, you´re a lifesaver!

  8. Hey, same thing here, same upgrade as well. Thanks for the fix. Bless you and bless Google for finding you.

  9. Chuck says:

    Tried all this and still cannot login to my admin panel. I don’t know what to do. Nothing works. Can’t get in. What a nightmare. I have thousands of people who use my site, and I am sitting here with my finger in my nose without no solutions. I hate this. Any ideas where I can turn next?

  10. irene says:

    Thanks a lot! I was suffering this for a long time and I can’t identify the problem.
    Thank you.

10 Comments Trackbacks For This Post

  1. MediaWorksStudio » Blog Archive » Documentation: WP Can’t login after big Upgrade (2.1 to 2.6)
  2. How To Upgrade WordPress Without Losing Your Plugins

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