Admin user can't update WP

Question

I have a site running WP 3.3.2. The backend shows a bar saying "WordPress 3.5 is available! Please notify the site administrator."

Funny thing is that I'm logged in with an admin user, I double checked that. When trying to access the update page (at wp-admin/update-core.php) I get this error:

"You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page."

Any hints on what could be going on here? Thanks.

Answer 1

Try to make a new admin user in the db.

Follow these steps you should be able to create a new admin user, then update and then you can give your old user admin rights again. Or use the new user.

Your old user might have wrong setting in the DB

http://www.dnawebagency.com/how-to-add-an-admin-user-to-the-wordpress-database

Answer 2

I had this problem once.

You should check your wp-config.php file and if you find this line

define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS',true);

change its value to false:

define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS',false);

Answer 3

Add the following code to a file in your wordpress root and go to that page.

<?php
define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);
require('wp-blog-header.php');

$role = get_role('administrator');

echo '<pre>';
print_r($role);
echo '</pre>';

Now, look for [update_core] in the text displayed. It's value should be 1.

If not, add the following line after the $role = get_role('administrator') line to add the update_core capability to the administrator.

$role->add_cap( 'update_core' ); 

Reload the page to see if the value of [update_core] is 1. If it is 1, you can try to do the update. Don't forget to delete the file you've added afterwards.

Method 2:

Get on PHPMyadmin and go to the wp_users table. Look for your user ID. Now go to wp_usermeta and change the wp_capabilities of your user ID to a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}. Do a backup before touching the database, just in case.

Answer 4

This is a shot in the dark, but do you by chance have any mu-plugins that could be causing this? wp-content/mu-plugins