Change is good but it can cause panic

I’m glad I was able to break the silence before the one month mark. If you’ve been here before, you will notice that the SEO Survivor website has been remodeled. A little face lift if you will . This new design is clean and goes with my theme. I also changed my avatar a little bit and incorporated it into the header of the site, so that’s pretty cool!

I thought I would share my experience of going through this upgrade as it was truly a  learning experience. It all started with me downloading the latest version of Wordpress and installing it. Once the package was downloaded, unpacked and ready to go, I did what every sensible webmaster would, a back up. I backed up the site files and the database. After all of those cautionary steps, I went for the meaty stuff and started uploading the files. That’s when the S#1T hit the fan!

I did the usual database upgrade and tried to log in. No access. Puzzled I tried again, and again, and again, and still no access. So I went to my “Forgot Password” tool over and over and over again, and still nothing. So I started to sweat cold a bit and rolled up my sleeves to get inside my database and reset the password from there.

Now I know this isn’t new information, and it is available through the Wordpress support files, but I thought I would share it here too, just to provide another place to find this important information. I opted for phpMyAdmin for my database, so these instructions will cover those steps.

Before going into your phpMyAdmin, make sure the problem isn’t coming from your wp-config.php file. It’s extremely important that this file is 100% clean. No extra spaces in the beginning nor at the end, and make sure that the database username is correct, as well as the password. These are probably different than the ones we’re trying to reset since they are the logins for the database.

disclaimer: phpMyAdmin could screw things up even further, so don’t go in there if you’re not confident, or ready for the possibility to screw things up even further as stated before

• The first thing to do is to log into your phpMyAdmin account.
• You will see a list of databases, click on your Wordpress database.

• The tables of your database will display, if they don’t, click on Structure.
• Find wp_users.
• Click on the icon for browse or structure.

• You will be taken to a screen that lists the fields within the wp_users table.

• Find user_login and click on browse. Now look for the ID number associated with this login. Write it down somewhere, or remember it.
• Go back to the wp_users table.
• Find the user_pass field and browse to find the ID number associated with this login.
• Click edit.
• You will see a long list of letters and numbers next to the ID number.
• Select that mumbo jumbo and delete it.

• Type in your new password.
• After typing your pass, go to the dropdown menu and select MD5.
• Make sure you have the correct password, also make sure MD5 is in the box.
• Click on the Go button, it’s on the bottom right.

• If this didn’t do it for you, make sure you’ve followed all of these instructions correctly, including the config.php instructions above.

So I hope you didn’t need these instructions, but if you did I’m sure they came in handy. Please check the help page from Wordpress regarding resetting passwords for more information as the stuff I’m sharing with you here was learned from there.

Thank you for reading and make sure to comment if you have anything to add or share.

Tagged as: wordpress