Often WordPress hosting companies recommend that you install a plugin called Limit Login Attempts. We love, use, and recommend it to all of our users. However in some cases, Limit Login Attempt may lock you out too, if you entered the wrong password a few times. In this article, we will show you how to unblock limit login attempts plugin in WordPress.
FTP or File Manager Method
The easiest solution for beginners is to delete Limit Login Attempts plugin using FTP and then re-install it later once you can login.
You need to login to your site via FTP and then go to /wp-content/plugins/. Once you’re there, you can simply delete the limit-login-attempts plugin folder.
For those who don’t know how to use FTP (check out our FTP video).
You can also do this using your web host’s cPanel File Manager.
Simply browse to /wp-content/plugins/ and delete the limit-login-attempts folder.
MySQL Query
For advanced users who are familiar with MySQL and phpMyAdmin, you can easily run the following SQL query, and it will clear all lockouts.
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = '' WHERE option_name = 'limit_login_lockouts' LIMIT 1;
If you want to unblock your specific IP e.g. 111.222.111.222, then run a query like this:
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = REPLACE(option_value, '111.222.111.222', '') WHERE option_name = 'limit_login_lockouts' LIMIT 1;
Make sure to update your IP address and also the database table prefix if you changed your database prefix.
We hope this article helped you unblock limit login attempts in WordPress.
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Thanks for this basic blog posts … this is really helpful content.
Glad our content could be helpful
Great advice on deleting the plugin folder. It works! If the prospect of deleting that folders concerns you, you can also simply rename the file from the file manager. This disables the plugin without deleting. Once logged into WP change the name back and you should be good to go.
Thank you! The SQL query worked a treat. Saved me being locked out of my own Site for 48 hours, lol. Chrome occasionally messes up passwords, and I have a 1-chance login. (at least I know it works.
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Thank you this worked great, now I just need to find out why it wont take my password and tells me my email for lost password is wrong despite knowing 100% positive its the right one lol
Mine locked me out and says my password is wrong. This is just crazy. Many are having this problem.
Hi Colleen,
You can deactivate all WordPress plugins to regain access to your website.
My wordpress site is locked some time for 1 hour or 3 min, how can i solve this problem??
Hi Muntazir,
Do you see an error when you are locked out?
Thank you! I am grateful for this perfectly ingenious and straightforward information which has saved me from what would otherwise have been a catastrophe.
I did it via file manager but im still loked out. please help
The most helpful and straightforward. Thank you!
Is there another plugin you recommend to limit login attempts now? Limit Login Attempts says it hasn’t been updated in over 2 years.
Yes we recommend using Login Lockdown — does the same thing and it’s up to date.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/login-lockdown/
Seems to me that the best solution for the self-lockout problem is prevention. I use LastPass to generate and track secure passwords (there are other utilities that may be just as good or even better, but I like LastPass/XMarks).
So far (more than 2 years of using Limit Login Attempts), I have never locked myself out of any of my admin accounts.
Hi Syed,
Great Tutorial.
The first one is easier. But one should know every possible way of doing a thing. The second one – using MYSQL Query is new for me and I learned it from here.
Thanks for the posting this.
~Sumit