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How to Fix WordPress Login Page Refreshing and Redirecting Issue

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Does your WordPress login page keep refreshing and redirecting when you try to log in to your website?

This issue locks you out of the WordPress admin area, making you unable to work on your website.

In this article, we will show you how to fix the WordPress login page refreshing and redirecting issue.

Fixing the login page redirect and refresh issue in WordPress

What Causes the Login Page Refresh and Redirect Issue in WordPress?

The WordPress login page refresh and redirect error is usually caused by incorrect WordPress URL settings or failure to set login cookies.

Normally, when you log in, WordPress validates your username and password and then sets a login cookie in your browser. After that, it redirects you to the WordPress dashboard.

If WordPress fails to set the login cookie correctly or your WordPress admin area URL is incorrect, then you will be redirected back to the login screen instead of the admin dashboard.

Login page redirect issue in WordPress

Login issues can also be caused by different WordPress errors, such as the error establishing database connection, internal server error, or the white screen of death.

With that in mind, let’s troubleshoot and fix the WordPress login page redirect and refresh issue. You can use these quick links to jump to a specific method:

Note: If you want to try the advanced steps in this WordPress tutorial, then please create a backup of your site first. See our guide on how to manually create a WordPress database backup.

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If you don’t like the video or prefer the written version instead, then please continue reading.

Method 1: Clear Cookies to Resolve Login Issues

WordPress uses cookies for login authentication, so the first step in troubleshooting WordPress login issues is the simplest one. You will need to clear your browser cookies and cache.

In Google Chrome, simply click on the browser settings menu and then select More Tools » Clear Browsing Data.

Clear browsing data in Google Chrome

This will launch the Chrome Settings page with a ‘Clear Browsing Data’ popup displayed on the screen.

From here, you need to select the ‘Clear cookies and other site data’ and ‘Cached images and files’ options.

Clear cookies and cache in Google chrome

Next, click on the ‘Clear data’ button, and Google Chrome will clear the browser cache.

Also, make sure that your browser has cookies enabled. After doing that, restart your browser and then try to log in. This should fix the issue for most folks.

We have a complete guide with screenshots showing how to clear the cache and cookies in all major browsers.

Method 2: Update WordPress URL Settings

WordPress comes with settings for the URL of your website and the URL of your WordPress installation.

If you had access to your WordPress admin area, then you could see this option on the Settings » General page.

WordPress URL settings

If these URLs are incorrect, then WordPress will redirect you back to the login page.

Since you are unable to access the WordPress admin area, you will need to edit the wp-config.php file to fix this issue.

The wp-config.php file is a special file in WordPress that contains your important WordPress settings. You can access it using an FTP client or via the File Manager app in your WordPress hosting account dashboard.

Editing wp-config.php file via FTP

You will find the wp-config.php file in your site’s root folder. Simply edit the file and paste the following lines of code just before the one that says, 'That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing'.

define('WP_HOME','https://www.example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','https://www.example.com');

Don’t forget to replace ‘example.com’ with your own domain name.

After that, save your changes and upload the file back to your website.

You can now visit your WordPress website and try to log in. Hopefully, this will have fixed the issue for you. If it didn’t, then continue reading for additional troubleshooting steps.

Method 3: Delete .htaccess File in WordPress

Sometimes, the .htaccess file can get corrupted, which can result in internal server errors or the login page refreshing error.

Simply access your website using an FTP client or via the File Manager app in your hosting provider’s dashboard.

Once connected, locate the .htaccess file in the root directory of your website and download it to your computer as a backup.

If you can’t find your .htaccess file, this guide on why your .htaccess file may be missing can help you.

Delete .htaccess file in WordPress

After that, go ahead and delete the .htaccess file from your website.

Next, open the wp-admin directory, and if there is a .htaccess file there, then go ahead and delete it as well.

You can now try to log in to your WordPress website. If you succeed, then this means that your .htaccess file was stopping you from logging in to WordPress.

Once you are logged in, simply go to the Settings » Permalinks page in the WordPress admin panel and click on the ‘Save’ button without making any changes. This will generate a new .htaccess file for your website.

Method 4: Deactivate All WordPress Plugins

Sometimes, WordPress plugins can cause this issue, especially if there is a conflict between two plugins.

To easily deactivate all your WordPress plugins, connect to your website using an FTP client or via the File Manager app in your web hosting account dashboard.

Once connected, go to the /wp-content/ directory. Inside it, you will see a folder named ‘plugins’. This is where WordPress installs all your plugins.

Rename plugins folder to deactivate all plugins

Simply rename the plugins folder to ‘plugins_backup’. This will deactivate all WordPress plugins installed on your website.

We also have a detailed tutorial on how to deactivate all WordPress plugins when the WordPress admin is inaccessible.

Once you have deactivated all plugins, try logging in to your WordPress site. If you succeed, then this means that one of your plugins was causing the issue.

Method 5: Revert to the Default Theme

WordPress themes can also cause conflicts after upgrading to a newer version of WordPress or the theme itself. To find out whether the problem is being caused by your theme, you will need to deactivate it.

The process is similar to deactivating plugins. Connect to your website using an FTP client. Then, you must go to /wp-content/themes/ directory and rename your current theme directory to ‘themes_backup’.

Once you have done that, then try logging in again. If you succeed, then this means your theme was causing the issue.

You can now reinstall a fresh copy of your theme to see if this resolves the issue. If the problem reappears, then you will need to contact your theme’s support or switch to a different WordPress theme.

We hope this article helped you resolve the WordPress login page refreshing and redirecting issue. You may also want to see our complete WordPress troubleshooting guide or check out our top picks for the best WordPress plugins and tools to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

355 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
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  2. Harry k says

    Thanks for this video and the post. I tried above all of your methods but none of them fixed the issue. read the comment and found a solution as below. Edit HTTPS to HTTP.

    define(‘WP_HOME’,’https://example.com’);
    define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’https://example.com’);

    to

    define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);
    define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);

    • WPBeginner Support says

      The issue with this method would be that your site would start to show the not secure message as your site would not be using HTRTPS. This can be a temporary workaround but you would want to update your site to use HTTPS after you are able to log in.

      Admin

    • WPBeginner Support says

      If none of the methods from this article are working for you, we would recommend reaching out to your hosting provider for them to check if there are any errors on their end.

      Admin

  3. Salah says

    Thanks a lot,

    You saved my day,
    I have changed the file wp-config.php as described in the tutorial and that worked for me.

    My best regards.

  4. Robert clancy says

    I messed around with the Update WordPress URL Settings
    and that was a world of pain to correct as it took my whole site down. I had to correct it through changing the config settings using FTP.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      The settings are definitely powerful and can cause issues if you change them incorrectly. Glad you were able to fix the issue using FTP!

      Admin

  5. David Kuteesa says

    Tried all and none worked. Here is what worked:
    Went to wp-config.php and set define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, false); to define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );
    Tried logging in again and got “usermeta table missing” error.
    Thats when I realised I had a missing table. Got it from another installation and changed the table prefix to meet current db.
    Worked immediately

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thank you for sharing this, for most beginners we recommend reaching out to their hosting provider if our recommendations do not work as they can check for less beginner friendly errors.

      Admin

  6. Stian says

    Thank you – that tip about restoring the admin page by adding two lines of code in the config file seems to work nicely (still crossing fingers), but I have hope now, which I didn´t earlier.

  7. WPBeginner Support says

    Glad our guide could help and if you hadn’t set up SSL before changing to https that would definitely be the most likely cause.

    Admin

  8. branhampaul says

    Thank You, it worked.

    I initially had the siteurl & wp address url changed to “https”, and this made me unable to log-in my dashboard. Maybe because I had not ssl at my host set-up.

    Re-changing the “https” to “http” helped me log-in back.

  9. Bryan Veloso says

    Everything didn’t work. But after downgrading my PHP from 7.4 to 7.2, I was able to login.

    Kinda weird, now I’m using an older PHP version.

    Did you encounter an issue similar to mine? I want to use the newer PHP version, but it doesn’t let me login in wp-admin.

  10. Alisha says

    This issue has never happened to me before, but the 2nd / plugin option worked for me right away.

    This website is a lifesaver! Thank you so much!

  11. Ruta says

    I tried some of these steps, but the problem turned out to be elsewhere: my site was setup as a ‘multisite’ but in wp-config file it said ‘subdomain_install’ as ‘false’, when I changed it to ‘true’, I could login to the site normally without redirects

    • Jerry says

      This was also my problem! I tried all the steps mentioned in the article, but after changing the ‘subdomain_install’ from false to true in the wp-config.php file it worked!!

      Thanks!!

    • Joe says

      I have been trying to solve this for MONTHS… Thanks to your comment, I was able to fix it in about 10 seconds. Thank you so much for sharing!

      This should be included in the tutorial.

  12. Fraser says

    I followed the instructions to deactivate all plugins and I now have access to wp-admin again! The instructions were easy to follow, and thanks so much for putting them out there.

  13. Sachin Baikar says

    Thanks for this great help. The plugin folder renaming worked for me. There was an issue with one of the plugins. Thanks once again :)

  14. Philipp says

    I was looking for a solution for over 5 hours now – nothing worked. But deleting the htaccess file in the wp-admin directory helped!
    I cant thank you enough.
    Made my day.

  15. Suraj Handa says

    Hey but now its showing that cookies are disable in your browser please enable cookies. What can I do now?

  16. ibrahim zouadi says

    Thank you for sharing those tips, unfortunately none of them have worked for me. I even uninstalled the whole wordpress plugin. I don’t know what should i do next :(

  17. PDN Social says

    This was a lifesaver! We were able to follow step-by-step and avoid a major problem!

    Great information!

  18. Jasmeet Singh says

    I couldn’t find my wp admin page. It shows

    “There has been a critical error on your website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions.

    Learn more about debugging in WordPress.”

    How can I fix this error?

  19. cristi says

    Hi, i have change by mistake my url and now the domain wp admin login url bring me to other site and i cont have ftp access how i can change back them?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You can either reach out to your hosting provider or if you have phpMyAdmin access you could change the options table and update the URL and address.

      Admin

  20. Ankit says

    define(‘WP_HOME’,’https://www.example.com’);
    define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’https://www.example.com’);

    where do these two lines add in wp-config.php file?

    At Last OR At Start?

    Please clarify

    • WPBeginner Support says

      As we state in the article: paste the code just before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing’.

      Admin

  21. Ada says

    Thank you so much for your post. I’m a newbie with WP. These lines worked for me

    define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);
    define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);

    I also changed the below line from false to true.

    define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Glad our recommendation could help, the WP_Debug you should be able to return to false should you want :)

      Admin

  22. mojo says

    thank u so much after spending so much time after deleting that .htacces and restart my mac open the website finally thanks for ur time

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