Updated database - Now can't login to wordpress admin - invalid username

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I run a LEMP stack on an Ubuntu VPS. I recently added a new wordpress installation and then installed a new theme. The new theme required that I install demo data in order to get the theme to the right look. In order to do this I had to use a plug-in called 'all-in-one WP migration'.

I installed the plugin, and installed the demo data in .wpress file format. Afterwards the successful data install, I was prompted with something about updating permalinks, I wasn't sure what this meant and since I didn't see why I would need to change this, I hit 'ok'.

Next wordpress suddenly said I needed a 'database update'. I have never seen wordpress do this however I hit 'ok'. The database updated and I was logged out of the admin screen.

Now whenever I try to log back into wordpress it says that my username is invalid. So I am unable to log back in as an admin or as any other user. The site and login page are up and work fine. I have restarted php-fpm, nginx and mysql. Still it says that my username is invalid.

I have no idea what exactly is causing this (besides something to do with the wordpress database) or where to start in finding the solution.

Any ideas of how to fix this?

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Is the purpose of the migration plugin to copy data from one WordPress instance to another? If so, perhaps it copied the admin credentials from the demo. - Emmanuel Rosa
Your right! However in the process it wiped my normal admin account and replaced it with a generic admin account with the email for that account linked to the theme creator, thus giving them access to the site and locking me out. - Gee_k
If you can SSH to VPS, manually edit the WordPress config files (wp-config.php for a start) or the database. - muru
I'm glad you resolved the issue. Note that if the theme truly added an admin account, perhaps you should be suspicious of the theme. Meaning it may have other back doors. - Emmanuel Rosa
I agree entirely! I contacted the theme creator and told them such. I created a new admin account and deleted the one tied to theme creator's email. - Gee_k

1 Answers

1
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It seems the when I updated the database, for whatever reason, it wiped the normal admin account that I had created to log into WP.

I went into MySQL, looked into the wp_users table under the WP database. There was one user_login which was named admin. I reset the password and logged back into WP.