I’ve just had a mild scare in that I was unable to log into this WordPress site even after trying a number of different ways to gain access by resetting the password via the methods listed on a number of WordPress help sites. The standard reset my password via email option was also not working. I have access directly to the web server and also have access to the backend MySQL database via PHPMyAdmin. Even with all that access, and having apparently changed the password value successfully, I was still getting failed logins.


I had recently enabled Two Factor Authentication using the Google Authenticator and using the WordPress Plugin of the same name. I suspected that this might be the issue as one of the suggestions on the troubleshooting pages was to disable all plugins.

Luckily, I remembered that through the WordPress website you have administrative access back to your blog site. So rather than go down a more complex and intrusive route, I went in and remotely disabled the plugin in question.

Disabling that plugin worked and I was able to login. I’m not sure yet if there was general issues with the Google Authenticator, or if the Plugin had some sort of issue, however end result was I could login and my slight panic was over.

Interesting note is that most things can be done through the WordPress website including publishing blog posts and general site administration. In this case it saved me a lot of time trying to work out what was happening with me not able to login. So if you do have issues with your login, and you suspect it’s a Plugin, make sure you have access to WordPress.com and remotely handle the activation status of the plugin.