Technical ConfusionBecause Technology Is Confusing

Changing Your Wordpress Password

You may find that changing your Wordpress password works better if you change it directly in the database.

Most hosts offer PHPmyadmin, which is a free application that lets you manipulate your database directly, you do need to know how to use it, and you need to be careful. Don’t click any red X’s!

On Cpanel hosts, you can access the PHPmyadmin utility by logging into Cpanel, go to mysql databases, and at the very bottom of the mysql page, there is a link to PHPmyadmin. If you don’t have PHPmyadmin, you can install it on your website and access your databases for that site.

Once you’re in PHPmyadmin, you need to find the correct database. I usually have at least 3, and since I don’t name everything the same, I have to search. But usually, the database will have a table number like (21) next to the database name. You click on that link. Wordpress databases install tables that are prefixed with wp_. So look for the wp_. It will look like wp_tablename or wpname_tablename.

Then, you’ll need to look for a table with users in it (not usermeta) - wp_users:

Then you need to select the users table:

Next, you need to select the user, which is usually admin as default, but you can select any user name you wish.

You’ll then come to a screen where you can change variables:

The one we’re focusing on is user_pass.

For the password, you’ll see a long string of characters that make absolutely no sense. This is your current password in encrypted form. Delete the characters.

Next, type your password as you normally would, and then in the function drop down box, choose MD5. This is what encrypts your password:

Don’t forget to click the Go button. You’re done. If you look at this screen, you’ll see your new password in it’s encrypted form.

Close the browser, open it up again and log into Wordpress with your new password.

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I’ve been obsessed (which is putting it mildly) with the Caylee Anthony case for the last few weeks, and as a result, I’ve been negligent when it comes to my own sites. I decided to start working on breaking this obsession, and decided to upgrade my blogs this weekend, which was way overdue.

I decided to use the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade and see how it worked on multiple blogs.

The Wordpress upgrades went well. All except one. One site seemed to upgrade ok, except that the plug-in didn’t automatically re-activate. No problem. Turned the plug-in back on, a couple threw errors on me, upgrading the plug-in solved the problem.

To look at the site, everything was all hunky dory. My tags weren’t working, and I was trying to figure out a way to import them and use them on the updated blog, but the site wasn’t showing visible errors.

I decided to upload another plug-in, and couldn’t because I was out of space. The site had plenty of space the day before. Hmm. A quick FTP session revealed several rather large core dumps taking up all the space. I downloaded one to look at to determine the problem, which was all tag software related.

Luckily, I’m obsessive about keeping backups. Before I proceed on any project for any site, I back up. Sometimes it will be the whole site, sometimes just the folder. I deleted every file on the site, deleted the database and re-uploaded the old files. Everything works fine.

Always back up. The Wordpress Automatic Upgrade does a backup for you if you choose, but I found it does not back up your theme folder and plug-in folder. I would rather manually back my sites up, just for my own peace of mind.