WordPress admin dashboard can’t be accessed after 5.9 update

WordPress users are reporting that they cannot access their wp-admin dashboard after updating to 5.9. Others say that after login, they are being redirected to the home page.

WordPress 5.9 admin dashboard access issues

Since the release of WordPress 5.9, some users have been seeking help on how to access their website’s admin dashboard. If you visit WordPress forums, you will notice that there are a couple of users with such problems.

We tried to find out the root cause of the problem and discovered that it is related to database issues.

Fixing admin dashboard access issues after updating to WordPress 5.9

If you try login and get these errors “403 Forbidden” or “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page“, then this is likely to be a permission issue. If you can log in but you are being redirected to the home page every time you attempt to access the admin dashboard, then it is either a cache issue or you have been blocked.

Below are three solutions to help you troubleshoot the wp-admin access issue.

Solution 1: Clear cache

If you are being redirected to the home page after attempting to log in without any errors and you can see the admin toolbar at the top, then clear your browser cache and log in.  

Solution 2:  fixing wp-admin permission issue

If you can log in but are getting permission-related errors like “403 Forbidden” or “you are not allowed to access this page“.  Then this is likely to be a database issue or a plugin with the ability to modify user roles that has unintentionally changed your role as an administrator. Therefore, you need to access phpMyAdmin from your control panel and check whether you have admin rights if not, add the rights.

• Go to phpMyAdmin
• Click your database tables
• Select wp_users
• Locate your username and note your user ID number
• Go back to tables and click wp_usermeta
• Under the user_id and meta_key column check for your user ID number and wp_capabilities respectively.
• If you are the admin, the meta_value column should indicated that you are the administrator (a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;b:1;})
• If it does not indicate so, click edit and copy paste these values to the meta-value box: a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;b:1;}
• Then click Go.
• If that does not work then check the steps below

Solution 3: fixing can’t log in

The first thing you should try to do is to reset your password. If you still can’t log in after resetting your password then it means you have been locked out of your admin dashboard by either a security plugin or a hacker who modified WordPress files.

In such a case you can’t deactivate themes or plugins from the wp-admin panel, therefore you need to disable all your plugin through FTP or cPanel file manager.

To disable plugins via file manager just rename each plugin folder by adding a number after the folder name. For example, if it is akismet plugin folder, rename it to akismet2. Your plugin settings or data will not be lost. After finding out which plugin is causing the problem, go back and rename the plugins to their original names by removing the number.

Remember also to rename your theme so that the default WordPress theme can be used

Rename your .htacccess file if renaming plugins and theme does not solve the login problem

Lastly, you need to check the wp-admin folder if there is any new .htaccesss folder and rename it.   

NOTE: Any folder or file that you renamed should be reverted to its original name as soon as you sort out the problem.