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How to Unblock Limit Login Attempts in WordPress

Are you unable to log in to your website because you reached the maximum number of failed login attempts?

If you type the wrong password too many times, then your own security measures may lock you out of your WordPress dashboard.

In this article, we will show you how to unblock the Limit Login Attempts plugin in WordPress.

How To Unblock Limit Login Attempts in WordPress

Why Are You Locked Out of Your Own WordPress Site?

When creating a WordPress website, it is a good idea to follow security best practices to reduce the risk of hacking.

We recommend that you install the Limit Login Attempts Reloaded plugin to limit the number of times someone can attempt to log in to your website. This significantly reduces a hacker’s chances of trying to guess your password using a brute-force attack.

But if you are having a bad day, then you might type your own password incorrectly. Maybe you recently changed your password or didn’t realize the caps lock was on.

If you type the password wrong too many times, then you can find yourself locked out of your own WordPress admin area.

Locked Out of Your Own WordPress Admin Area

You will need to temporarily unblock limit login attempts in WordPress to regain access. We will show you two ways:

Method 1: Unblocking Limit Login Attempts Using FTP

The easiest solution for beginners is to simply delete the Limit Login Attempts Reloaded folder and then reinstall the plugin later once you can log in.

For this method, you will need to either use an FTP client or the file manager option in your WordPress hosting control panel.

If you haven’t used FTP before, then you may want to see our guide on how to use FTP to upload files to WordPress.

You need to access your site using your FTP client or file manager and then go to the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. Once you are there, you can simply delete the limit-login-attempts-reloaded plugin folder.

Simply Delete the limit-login-attempts-reloaded Folder

You can now log in to your WordPress admin area.

When you are ready, don’t forget to reinstall and activate the Limit Login Attempts Reloaded plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Method 2: Unblocking Limit Login Attempts Using MySQL

While Method 1 is simpler, advanced users who are familiar with MySQL and phpMyAdmin might like to clear the Limit Login Attempts Unloaded lockout using a SQL query.

First, you will need to log in to your web hosting dashboard and click the ‘phpMyAdmin’ icon under the Databases section.

Click the ‘phpMyAdmin’ Icon

This will launch phpMyAdmin in a new browser window. You will need to select your WordPress database if it is not already selected. After that, you should click on the ‘SQL’ tab and paste the following query:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = '' WHERE option_name = 'limit_login_lockouts' LIMIT 1;

This query assumes you are using the default’ wp_’ database prefix.

If you changed your database prefix, then you will need to update the query with the correct prefix.

SQL Query

Having done that, you need to click the ‘Go’ button at the bottom right of the screen to run the query.

You will be shown a message confirming that the query was successful.

SQL Query Successful

The number of unsuccessful retries has been reset, and you can now log in to your WordPress admin area.

If you would prefer to unblock your own specific IP address instead of everyone’s, then run a query like this instead:

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 the query with your actual IP address instead of ‘111.222.111.222’. You can find it by navigating to WhatIsMyIP.com in your web browser.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to unblock Limit Login Attempts in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your blog traffic or our expert pick of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

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Reader Interactions

24 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. 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

  2. Hi,

    With the SQL solution to being locked out of the admin login page, after I put in what you suggest it comes up with error -#1146 – Table ‘zpcgqplm_wp458.wp_options’ doesn’t exist – what should I do now?

    • You would want to ensure you are editing the database with your WordPress information in it. That error means that your WordPress information is not in the database you are trying to edit.

      Admin

  3. 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.

  4. 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. :-) )

  5. 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

  6. My wordpress site is locked some time for 1 hour or 3 min, how can i solve this problem??

  7. Thank you! I am grateful for this perfectly ingenious and straightforward information which has saved me from what would otherwise have been a catastrophe.

  8. Is there another plugin you recommend to limit login attempts now? Limit Login Attempts says it hasn’t been updated in over 2 years.

  9. 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.

  10. 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

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