Cannot login to ADMIN even after changing password in phpmyadmin

Question

I have an old wordpress site which I haven't logged-in for 2 years. Recently I tried to log back in using the admin account but it wouldn't let me. Saying the password is incorrect. I tried to login using a test account and also failed, seems like none of the login are working.

So I went into PHPmyAdmin and realized my MySQL was full, then I cleared a table which was used by a plugin called Simplehistory (it contained 700M of data), and then I was able to just change the admin password from the phpmyadmin console. However, I still can't login even though the phpmyadmin told me the query command was successful.

I have also tried the emergency script, which I went to /emergency.php to change the password, but the system still wouldn't log me in?

Answer 1

From the WP Codex:

1. Begin by logging into phpMyAdmin and clicking databases.
2. A list of databases will appear. Click your WordPress database.
3. All the tables in your database will appear. If not, click Structure.
4. Look for wp_users in the Table column.
5. Click on the icon for browse.
6. Locate your Username under user_login
7. Click edit (may look like a pencil icon in some versions of phpMyAdmin)
8. Your user_id will be shown, click on Edit
9. Next to the user_pass is a long list of numbers and letters.
10. Select and delete these and type in your new password.
11. Type in the password you want to use. Just type it in normally, but remember, it is case-sensitive.
12. In this example, the new password will be 'rabbitseatcarrots'
13. Once you have done that, click the dropdown menu indicated, and select MD5 from the menu.
14. Check that your password is actually correct, and that MD5 is in the box.
15. Click the 'Go' button to the bottom right.
16. Test the new password on the login screen. If it doesn't work, check that you've followed these instructions exactly.

Answer 2

The passwords in wordpress are hashed meaning that changing the value in the sql table probably wouldn't work. If you have ssh access to wherever your site is hosted, have a look at wp-cli. https://wp-cli.org/

You would be able to run a command to chnge your password or create a new admin account