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Why Can't I Access wp-admin?
Checking The Theme
Checking Plugins
Check Your Permissions
Check Your Firewall
Check Your Files

Unable To Access wp-admin

Tags: WordPress 

Why Can't I Access wp-admin?
Checking The Theme
Checking Plugins
Check Your Permissions
Check Your Firewall
Check Your Files

Why Can't I Access wp-admin?

There are several reasons why you may suddenly be unable to access wp-admin. A blank white page may be showing, or there is an error page being displayed. The most common reasons for this include an issue with your theme, a problematic plugin, the wrong permissions set in your cPanel, corrupt files in your WordPress installation, or even your firewall preventing you from accessing it.

Checking The Theme

Go to your cPanel's File Manager or connect to your site through FTP

Navigate to the wp-content/themes folder of your WordPress installation.

Make sure you have the default WordPress theme installed in there. This will usually be named to reflect a year. Such as Twenty Seventeen

Rename your currently active theme to something else.

Check the site to see if it fixes the problem – if it does, there's something wrong with your theme.

Checking Plugins

  1. Go to your cPanel's File Manager or connect to your site through FTP
  2. Navigate to the wp-content/plugins folder of your WordPress installation.
  3. Rename the plugins folder itself. You can rename it to plugins-old
  4. See if it fixes the problem – if it does, there's something wrong with one of your plugins
  5. Change the name back to plugins
  6. Inside the plugins folder, rename the plugins one by one, checking your site between each change until you find the problem plugin.

Check Your Permissions

  1. Go to your cPanel's File Manager or connect to your site through FTP
  2. Navigate to the wp-admin folder of your WordPress installation.
  3. Make sure the permissions are set to 755 for folders and 644 for files

Check Your Firewall

Disable your firewall temporarily and see if you can access your site. If you can, enable the firewall and add an exception for your URL… how you do this will vary according to which firewall you're using.

Check Your Files

Try to go log in at yoursite.com/wp-login.php instead of yoursite.com/wp-admin. If that works, something may have corrupted your login folder. Download and unzip the latest WordPress files and replace your current wp-login.php file with the new wp-login.php file.

If you should have any questions, would like assistance or this guide does not work, please contact us through Live Chat or by submitting a ticket with our Technical Support team.

Written by Hostwinds Team  /  December 13, 2016