Joomla! Forum - community, help and support

Please, I'm really hoping that a person will read this - not a computer!!! I cannot login to my site. It was recently destroyed, but then rescued, and since then I have managed to add new content etc with relative ease. I am the only administrator of the site. This morning I logged in, did some work and logged out again, now I can't for the life of me log in! My username and password are apparently wrong although I didn't change anything when logged in. What can I do? Is there any way I can gain access to my site? Please help me.........

If the login screen just refreshes and reloads the login screen:
Is your sessions.save_path directory writable?
You can use phpinfo(); to see the system specs: http://php.net/manual/en/function.phpinfo.php
The sessions.save_path is needed for storing the authentification sessions for the back-end. The front-end works with cookies.

Contact your host to make the sessions.save_path directory writable or
at Apache webservers it's possible to override the default session.save_path from php.ini, by using .htaccess.


If the login screen redirects to some "wrong username/password" screen:
You can create a new password, see:
FAQ: How to reset an administrator password?: http://help.joomla.org/component/option ... temid,268/

[MOD note: moved to 1.5 administration]

I had this problem this morning and could not log-in to the back end. Everything was fine yesterday so I was puzzled. I logged into the root of my server and changed permissions on the sessions directory as suggested and then managed to log in. So I logged back out and reset the permissions on the session directory to previous setting and tried to log back in. This time it worked.

Very strange!

Using Joomla 1.0.12 so I guess I need to upgrade

i have the same problem with my joomla. any suggestion?

I installed 1.5.6 yesterday, and this morning I was able to login.

But after a few hours later, all in sudden the administrator account is blocked.

UPDATE, it was because I disabled joomla login. I found this from the bug tracker...

i just installed joomla, logged in and now i can only see the front end. how do i login into the root of my server to fix this problem? what do i type in the address field of my browser? i thought i had everything solved after finally getting through installation and now this...ugh...

thanks very much for any help!

juxtafras wrote:what do i type in the address field of my browser?

Type /administrator behind your website's domain name, e.g.:
www.example.com/administrator

I am having the same problem. I was merrily working on building a site this morning, and then this afternoon when I went to login to the backend, the login screen just refreshes. I do not get any error message telling me that the username or password is incorrect (I have autofill enabled on my web browser, so I know they are the same as this morning).

According to the phpinfo dump, the session.save_path is "/tmp". I made sure that the /tmp directory is writable by User only, as well as all enclosed items. The directory is not writable by Groups or World (I tried enabling both of those as well, but to no avail).

I am running the latest version of joomla (1.5.6) which I just installed 2 days ago. Godaddy is my host (if that means anything)

I have cleared all the cookies that relate to both Joomla sites and the site I am working on. Still no luck. Any other ideas? Please help.

I have a for me big problem with my installation of Joomla 1.5.x.
From the beginning it worked alright but the suddenly I could not log in got a message that some module could not be loaded, so I reinstalled it and cleaned my mysql database everything in the installation worked fine exept that I could not get my ftp to work in joomla inst. But now I cannot log in and there are no users in my database I tried to manualy put a user in but this didn't work either so i again reinstalled but nothing I cannot log in of course no users.

Please help me
I'm desperate.

Ulrikl

I copied a database and Joomla files from my host, hoping to duplicate the installation on my home PC before switching hosts. The front end works, but I can't log in to the back end. I first had a password problem but resolved that. Now when I try to log in, it always returns to the login screen and says, "You need to login." phpinfo() says session.save_path is c:\tmp . That directory exists and is writeable. I have tried to make sense of the code in joomla/administrator/index.php to no avail. Any suggestions?

I have the same problem. Been searching forum without luck

EDIT: I did a fresh install of 1.5.8 and then upgraded to 1.5.9 and it worked!

Hi,
I couldn't remember the backend admin password and asked for it to be sent. but nothing came via e-mail. Please help. I want to login into the backend

Meimuna wrote:I couldn't remember the backend admin password and asked for it to be sent.

You can create a new password, see:
http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners#How_to ... n_Password
and
http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F

I managed to change the password. Now the site is offline and when I go to sitename\administrator it goes to MyphpAdmin login. How can I get the site online again and try out the backend password that I've re-set?

I am encountering the same problem with Joomla (1.0.13) backend login.

I have tried setting the session save path (/tmp) chmod to 777 (previously it was 700) and still CANNOT login. I have tried changing the password via phpadmin and that didn't work either.

Does anyone has any other tricks I can try? Any help would be most appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Oh in the FTP, I just noticed the Owner/Group for most directories (including /tmp) is "abcde" (not the real name) but for htpasswords, etc and public_html directories, it's all different Owner/Group name. Has this anything to do with the failed login?

Dunno if it's like this all along or recently been changed though.

Today I checked two of my sites and BOTH developed this problem. I can log into the front end fine but the backend gives an incorrect username/password. I tried changing passwords and changing the tmp file to 777 but no luck. I created a new super admin from phpmyadmin with no luck. Anybody have any ideas?!

Whew. I spent hours figuring this out and I hope it helps someone. My host recently upgraded MySQL and one of my databases was left corrupt. My host was able to recover the corrupt database and now I can log into the backend.
Good luck!

Thanks for the info rickster!!

I found out that my jos_core_acl_aro table was corrupted and cannot be repaired. I simply use an old database backup and just restore that table and got it working again.

Hope this helps others too.

I still cannot login with my usual login and password. I do not get the username or password incorrect error (unless I type it in wrong of course!).

my /tmp folder has 777 permissions

I have cleared cache and cookies, checked and repaired the DB

the session phpinfo is below if that helps, but I really need to get in and finish this website. Is there another way I can get in temporarily?

Can anyone provide a fix?

Cheers

Graham

session.auto_start Off Off
session.bug_compat_42 On On
session.bug_compat_warn On On
session.cache_expire 180 180
session.cache_limiter nocache nocache
session.cookie_domain no value no value
session.cookie_lifetime 0 0
session.cookie_path / /
session.cookie_secure Off Off
session.entropy_file no value no value
session.entropy_length 0 0
session.gc_divisor 100 100
session.gc_maxlifetime 1440 1440
session.gc_probability 1 1
session.name PHPSESSID PHPSESSID
session.referer_check no value no value
session.save_handler files files
session.save_path /tmp /tmp
session.serialize_handler php php
session.use_cookies On On
session.use_only_cookies Off Off
session.use_trans_sid Off Off

Hi,
I am having the same problem. I have contacted my host to make the sessions.save_path directory writable and they did say that the sessions.save_path directory is writable.
So why I still cannot get into joomla (admin-backend)?
Please advise...
Thank you...

You can log into your back end by just typing this
http://yoursitename.com/administrator
Be sure that you have entered a valid/correct site name
check whether you have typed the correct spelling of administrator since some chances are there to miss type it.

Hi,
I tried that several times, but the page keeps refreshes... Still cannot go in to Joomla...

hi,
check the browser you are using
open it in some other browser
check the user name and password that you mentioned while installing joomla
If you don't mind you can send me your site name just to check the front end and try out for backend

Hi,
The site is:
http://www.ipreciation.dreamhosters.com
I tried on different browsers and platform (Mac n PC), still not working...

Btw, thank you so much for helping...

hi,
do you geting the administration and password dialog box
for me it is showing
see this your broser admin backend box
click on this link

http://ioffice.in/iappreciate
After visiting this site reply me

Hi,
Yes, i can see the joomla admin login... but everytime i log in my ID and password, the page only refreshes...

Do I need to upgrade from 1.5.11 to 1.5.14?
...

I think no need, checkout these things up to this level I can help you out after that I am helpless.
The first thing I feel to suggest you is to check configuration.php and .htaccess files on you site’s root.
It’s important for configuration.php not to contain any blank lines; also, check this file in respect to the Linux/UNIX text file conventions.
On Windows, text file lines’ are terminated with a CRLF (Carriage Return (\r) Line Feed (\n).)
on Linux/UNIX instead, the lines of a text file are terminated with just a LF (line feed)
The .htaccess (on the contrary of configuration.php), may contain blank lines, just make sure that, if any, they respect the ‘foretold Linux/UNIX text file conventions (lines have to be ended by LFs); also, check and make sure the rules are correct and there are no hidden CRLF after the rules declarations (in case of doubt, restore the original htaccess.txt from an untouched joomla! Build.
Another useful thing to check for, is to make sure you have the right PHP version: make sure your host is serving you with PHP 5 (since joomla was made with it). How to discover if you have PHP5 if you can’t access the admin backend? Well, upload on your site’s root the uncompressed file JTSPOST and open the address corresponding to the copied file’s name. Once you open it up, it’s gonna give you some useful info about joomla! and your server, included what php version you have.
Please remeber that if you happen to fix your problem, then remove JTSPOST from your server’s root, because if you forgive it there, you may leave a possible information security hole.