WordPress CMS modifications

You are able to reset the password in WordPress by sending yourself an email using the lost password option. You are asked for the username or email and if all is well, an email with password reset link is sent. However, sometimes this is not an option for various reasons.

Firstly you need access to phpMyAdmin, which is a database administration tool. Almost all web hosting service providers give their users access to this tool (or something similar) to administer databases on the server. You often get access to this through your hosting control panel, or through a special web address. Please contact your web host if you are unsure about this.

STEP 1 Once you are logged into phpMyAdmin, select the database that you are using for your WordPress installation (you may skip this step if you are logged into a single database).

STEP 2 Once the database is selected, you should see the main tables used listed on the left hand side. It may look a little different to mine due to different plugin options in your WordPress install, but the principle is the same. Find and click on the table ending ‘users’ - you may have a different prefix at the start, ‘wp_’ being the default. In the example shown, I am selecting the table ‘wp_users’, but yours may be called something like ‘blog_users’ or ‘mainsite_users’ depending on your wp-config.php file.

Step 2 - Click on 'users' table

STEP 3 Once you are into the ‘users’ table, click on ‘browse’, which is usually at the top.

Step 3 - browse users

STEP 4 Now you will see all the users listed in the database - in my example I only have one user, but you will probably have more! You need to browse through looking for the user you wish to change the password on.

STEP 5 Now you need to edit the user, this will be done by either clicking on the little pencil icon in the row, or clicking on the tickbox next to the name and clicking on ‘edit’ depending on your phpMyAdmin version/configuration.

Step 5 - edit user

STEP 6 Look for the field called ‘user_pass’ - this will have a whole bunch of numbers and symbols in. The password is stored using MD5 encryption to protect it.

STEP 7 Replace this text string with your new password (as you would type it), remember - strong passwords contain more than 8 characters and are a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers.

STEP 8 IMPORTANT - Select ‘MD5′ (NOT PASSWORD!) from the drop-down ‘Function’ menu in the ‘user_pass’ field - this will re-encrypt your new password for you. THIS WILL NOT WORK if you don’t encrypt the new password, and you wil not be abe to login!

Step 8 - Encrypt new password

Step 9 Click the ‘Go’ button near the bottom to commit this change to the database, wait a couple of seconds and you should get a confirmation screen appear telling you exactly what’s been changed.

Now you should be able to login to WordPress with your new password - if not, change the password again, making sure that you have selected the right encryption method - ‘MD5′ NOT ‘PASSWORD’!