URGENT: Super Administrator Username/Password not working

[cyndee]

Hi,

I urgently need assistance to have my website fixed. It is a Joomla v1.6 that I recently launched and was beeen working beautifully.

Yesterday, I discovered the site would not open and that the index.php was missing from my ftp hosting - which was very strange, as I did not remove nor does anyone have access to remove. I can only assume something has occurred with the Hosting provider or my site was hacked or there are corrupt files. I took a copy of another index.php file that I had saved and applied. This fixed my website so that it was now viewable on the web.

I then went to log into the backend Administrator and my username and password did not work. I then logged into the cPanel and view the php admin > user table and noticed that the only user account was Admin yet my username is not this. I then researched Joomla and found a documentation that gets you to run an SQL script that places a new username and password into your Joomla account to be able to temporarily access then change. I ran this fine, which seemed to work fine, but I am still unable to log into the backend of my website.

I desperate to get this resolved without losing my website and having to start again. If anyone can assist me, I would be happy to pay to get resolve it required.

Look forward to hearing any responses, if you could email me at cyndee@maximsolutions.com.au a price to fix and what you then need from me?

Thanks

[duyet]

I think you can add a new user with empty password using phpMyAdmin (users table). Then go to user_usergroup_map add a new entry using the id of added user and group id = 8 (super user).

Then go to the back-end login with that user, no password. Then go to Users -> User Manager and add a password for your new user

[Per Yngve Berg]

http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F

[Webdongle]

A few possibilities here

1. You unpublished the jauthentication plugin
2. You installed a 3rd party extension that handles Users and forgot to tell it Admin is SU
3. You've been hacked
4. Someone else with access mucked something up.

[cyndee]

No one else has access to the backend and I hadn't been in the backend of site for a couple days and all was fine then. What are my possible options to gain access again?

[Webdongle]

...I hadn't been in the backend of site for a couple days and all was fine then. ...

It doesn't matter how long since you entered the admin of the site. Or that you logged in OK the last time. If the last time you were in there you installed a 3rd party user manager then once logged out it could prevent logging in again.

And the possibility of being Hacked is still open.

With phpMyAdmin search the database for 'authentication' and see if the jauthntication plugin is enabled. 1 = yes, 0(zero) = No.

It would be a good idea to run several antivirus/antimalware on your PC just in case.

Do you have a backup ?

What is the url of your site ?

[cyndee]

Hi, I couldn't locate under phpMyAdmin using Search the Authentication to verify your question. I also checked and I use Norton 360 antivirus software which is up to-date and showing no issues. I do have a back up of the site and would be happy to revert back to this. I have never restored a backup and would appreciate the steps on doing this (if you have).

The URL is gosfordmechanic.com.au.

Please advise next steps. Once I gain access to the backend of the site again, I will be changing the password. Can you also advise if there are mechanism I should be doing to avoid getting my account hacked, ie is there a particular setting or plug that should be used to assist.

Thanks so much

[Per Yngve Berg]

Mod. Note: Move the topic to the Administration forum.

Look in the jos_extensions table after "401 plg_authentication_joomla plugin joomla authentication" and check that the enabled field is set to "1"

[aapdesign]

perhaps this : http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=624&t=673566

[cyndee]

I have just checked that 401 plg_authentication_joomla plugin joomla authentication and it was enabled and set to 1.

After reviewing my cPanel, I can see that an email was created by someone that is not me for another domain that I have that is linked to the hosting plan. I have deleted this email and feel that I need to now change my hosting password.

I'm not sure if I should do this yet or still try and gain access to the back end of my website. Any further advice is appreciated.

[cyndee]

I have also tried to do the steps that Duyet mentioned above. I can access the Users table but I cant for the next steps of locating the user_usergroup_map and adding a new entry. What I can do is copy the existing record (which is admin) and then changing the username and leaving password blank.

I tried to then login to the backend of the website and it's not working. I then went back to the user table and put a password in for the new user and this didn't work either.

It is like the backend login page just no longer works at all.

Any other ideas

[PhilD]

http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F
Is the document you want to use to recover an administrator password.

to check if the Authentication - Joomla plugin is enabled, open the table jos_plugins in phpMyadmin, look and see if Authentication - Joomla is published. There should be a 1 in the published column.

also your hosting password should be different from your Joomla admin password. Resetting one has no affect on the other.

If you think you have been hacked then use this post as a guide:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582854

[murenti]

Hi I have also had the same issue with admin login. I was adding terms to the shop section of Virtuemart and when I clicked save I was logged out and I cannot log back in as an administrator.
I have followed the details from the previous post, ie I have tried to add a new user to my login and then add the details as shown below
"configuration.php file and add public $root_user='myname';
To do this I had to add another user by creating a new user from the home page first but when I did the following error shows "Fatal error: Call to a member function checkAnswer() on a non-object in /home/plpl7113/public_html/orderonline.net.au/libraries/cms/form/rule/captcha.php on line 47"
I checked the code within 'captcha.php' to see if anything obvious stood out but I could not see anything, and I also replaced this file with a good copy and the same error showed.
I have also tried adding a new admin to 'jos_users' as described below but the new user also does not login
http://docs.joomla.org/How_you_reset_an ... assword%3F

I would be very grateful for anyones help
my site url is orderonline.planetbiz.com.au and I am using Joomla 2.5.4

[PhilD]

"configuration.php file and add public $root_user='myname';
The configuration.php file does not contain any Joomla users or administrators The name you apparently changed is the database user name (and the associated database user password) and should not be changed or you loose connectivity to the database. Put any changes you made to the configuration.php file back tyhe way they were. Please review http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F and make sure you are following the proper procedure for your Joomla version.

As a side note, if you were logged in working on the site and suddenly you can not log back in, then maybe you did something wrong. Also you can not create the proper user level for administration from the front end. You have to log in to the Joomla administrator area to do that.

[murenti]

Thanks for your suggestions, I havn't tried to access admin from a new non admin user. I followed the instruction from your earlier post http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F where it says
"you can recover the password if you have access to your configuration.php file on your server. Open this file and add
public $root_user='myname';
to the list where myname is a username with administrator access that you know the password for.
This user will now be a temporary super administrator."

As there were no other users other than Admin before the error and before I tried the suggestion at http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F I decided to try an add a new user from the front page as I couldnt think of any other way. But it didn't work as it threw the captchpa error.

When I looked in PHPmyadmin as detailed in the article at http://docs.joomla.org/How_you_reset_an ... assword%3F there was no admin user listed in 'jos_users' list. The only user was my cpanel login user and I havnt touched that at all, I created another user there as outlined from the article but it does not login.

I will relook at your article suggestion and let you know.
Thanks for your help

[PhilD]

Well, yep, it does say that. I or someone else with some time will need to review that for accuracy. You will need to know at least an administrator level username and password to do this though and I am not entirely positive it will even work. Unfortunately I don't have time tonight to do a test.

I would suggest at this point you use the appropriate mysql code to insert a new super user and password. You can then use this to login to the Joomla administrator area and then you can change things as necessary. Don't leave this temporary user as the name and password are publicly (it's in a public document) known. So change it to something else after you have restored proper access to your desired user name.

[murenti]

I think I will uninstall that version of Joomla and reinstal,

Thanks for you help

[Webdongle]

... I followed the instruction from your earlier post http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F where it ...

yoursite.com/administrator
redirects to
yoursite.com/oscommerce/administrator

Which is just as well, because everyone knows the user/pass for that SU

[murenti]

Its only a temporary password and if they can get in when I can't good luck to them.

[murenti]

Thanks for you warning but I run 2 joomla's and 1 oscommerce from this site, they all have different admin logins, so that shouldn't be an issue. Unless you are suggesting that access to one will give access to all, are you?

[murenti]

Thanks for your help, all the best for your exam, (What are you studying?) I have removed that Joomla to start again, um well here goes.

[PhilD]

Well, yep, it does say that. I or someone else with some time will need to review that for accuracy. You will need to know at least an administrator level username and password to do this though and I am not entirely positive it will even work. Unfortunately I don't have time tonight to do a test.

The info in question is accurate and I have fleshed it out some so it is easier for those less technical to understand the process.
http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F

When testing, the username used has to be at least a Joomla permission level of Author for the procedure to work. Also pay close attention to the permissions set on the configuration.php file. After editing this file from the Joomla administrator end, Joomla will set the permissions on the file to (444) read only. While this allows ftp to download the file (where you can use a text editor to edit it), it means you can not successfully replace the file on the server with the edited file. Failure on a file upload is not that noticeable in many FTP programs. You may think the file uploaded when in fact it did not. Pulling of hair is the usual result of this failure until it is discovered the edited version never uploaded.. The solution is to follow the directions and change the permissions to 644 on the configuration.php downloading the file and making the edits. Because the permissions are 644 you can overwrite the file upon upload successfully. No hair pulling.

[murenti]

Thanks for taking the time to further investigate, it is much appreciated.