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Admin Tools

#17323 Locked out after Session Purge : Admin login page redirects to /index

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Admin Tools version
n/a

Latest post by user78427 on Tuesday, 10 September 2013 14:01 CDT

Tuesday, 03 September 2013 20:37 CDT

user78427
Mandatory information about my setup:

1) Have I read the related troubleshooter articles ? Yes - Troubleshooting Guide and Joomla Forum (http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=717423)
2) Have I searched the tickets before posting? Yes - Closest related ticket is 9558
https://www.akeebabackup.com/support/admin-tools-core/9558-locked-out-after-purge-session.html
3) Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes - Admin Tools User Guide (Install, Database, Super Admin ID)

Joomla! version: 2.5.12
PHP version: 5.x
PERL, CGI, SSI support
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: TwoCows
Admin Tools version: Core (free)

Description of my issue: Cant access login page. After a session purge on a fresh install of Admin Tools Core (free version), I was locked out and unable to access the admin login page (/administrator) to log into back-end, as the unaltered login page redirects to home page (/index).

What happened before issue:
- Updated to latest Joomla version (from 2.5.11 to 2.5.12)
- Disbaled user login plugin
- Installed Admin Tools Core
- Did a Session Purge in Admin Tools *
* A session Purge warning stated others would be locked out, but not current user. That was not the case, unfortunately!

What did I do after issue
- Attempted to disable Admin Tools via FTP (main-disable.php)
- Verified Configuration.php and htaccess for any changes (not fluent enough to truly know)
- Verified PHPMyAdmin to enable/disable any plugins but stangely did not find any "abc"_plugins in table.
- Verified PHPMyAdmin to enable Authentification, but a search ended in no results for that term
- Contacted Host. They are offreing assistance for a fee...
- Purchased Admin Tools Pro (but not installed, can't - yet)
- Posted Ticket here.

Thanks for any help you can bring.

Tuesday, 03 September 2013 23:42 CDT

dlb
enable/disable any plugins but stangely did not find any "abc"_plugins in table.

I'm pretty sure this is where your problem solving went wrong. We need to disable the "System - Admin Tools" plugin. The "abc_" in the instructions you were reading was intended as a place holder, an example. We don't know what your real database table prefix would be. If you disable the plugin using phpMyAdmin, I think you will be able to log in to the back end of your site.

The other thing to look for is an .htaccess file in the /administrator folder of your site. If you find one, rename it to htaccess.bak. I don't think this is the problem, you would get a 403 error if it was.

Dale


Dale L. Brackin
Support Specialist


us.gifEnglish: native


Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!


????
My time zone is EST (UTC -5) (click here to see my current time in Philadelphia, PA)

Wednesday, 04 September 2013 21:00 CDT

user78427
Bad to worse - site down now. This issue may be unrelated however - looking at it with Host. Thank you for reply. Will post back up once I have attempted your suggestion. P.s : It was understood "abc" was just a dummy term.
Edited by user78427 on 2013-09-04 21:01 CDT

Wednesday, 04 September 2013 22:13 CDT

user78427
@ dlb

In PHPMyAdmin, under my single database table A) I am unable to locate System - Admin Tools, B) nor would I know how to disable a plugin from the table.

On the left pane of PHPMyAdmin, I see my database name and I see "information_schema". I am browsing the former. Here is what I have that is remotely close in my table (prefix substituted to abc for this post) :

abc_admintools_acl
abc_admintools_adminiplist
abc_admintools_badwords
abc_admintools_customperms
abc_admintools_filescache
abc_admintools_ipautoban
abc_admintools_ipblock
abc_admintools_log
abc_admintools_profiles
abc_admintools_redirects
abc_admintools_scanalerts
abc_admintools_scans
abc_admintools_storage
abc_admintools_wafexceptions
...
abc_session
...
Where to take it from here?


Wednesday, 04 September 2013 23:06 CDT

dlb
Alex,

I'm sorry, I can't get phpMyAdmin working on my new server and I can't do it from memory. I'll have to ask Nicholas to take over this support ticket.

Dale


Dale L. Brackin
Support Specialist


us.gifEnglish: native


Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!


????
My time zone is EST (UTC -5) (click here to see my current time in Philadelphia, PA)

Thursday, 05 September 2013 01:31 CDT

nicholas
First, let's try this. Clear your browser's cookies (at least the cookies for your domain name) and clear your browser's cache. If your problem really was the session purge this procedure will allow you to log back in to your site. If this didn't work, let's make sure that the problem is indeed caused by Admin Tools. In order to do so, try the following:

1. Try setting the Error Reporting level in your Global Configuration to "None". Many errors are caused by harmless PHP Notices and Warnings being output to the browser, breaking anything which requires HTTP header manipulation such as Joomla!'s session management, AJAX calls and download systems. Since you can't access your site's back-end, you'll have to do it manually: edit your site's configuration.php file and set
public $error_reporting = 'none';


2. Try to replicate the issue after disabling the "System - Admin Tools" plugin. If you can still replicate the issue, it is not caused by Admin Tools. Disabling that plugin means that Admin Tools code (including the Web Application Firewall) is not running on your site. Please remember that you do not need back-end access to disable the plugin. All you need is FTP access and rename the plugins/system/admintools directory to something else, e.g. disabled-admintools. Joomla! won't be able to find the plugin's directory and won't load it.

3. If you suspect an issue with the .htaccess file, replace its contents with the contents of the stock htaccess.txt file shipped with every version of Joomla!. If you are on GoDaddy please wait for 1-30 minutes for the changes to be effective. Then, retry loading the problem page. If you can still reproduce the error, then it is not caused by .htaccess Maker.

If doing any of the above resulted in the issue still occurring, it's not related with Admin Tools and I can't help you.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 10 September 2013 14:01 CDT

user78427
Locked out of site - Login page redirects to index

Fixed - it was an issue with ECC+ plugin, not Admin Tools.

After the above suggestions proved unseccessful with my issue, I disabled the latest installed plugins one by one to eventually discover the culprit. In my case disbaling ECC+ via phpMyAdmin, under "abc"_extensions > ECC ("abc" being whatever your prefix) and changing the value from 1 to 0 (under the enabled column) allowed me to log back in. Hope this helps others!

Thank you for the assistance
Edited by user78427 on 2013-09-10 14:08 CDT

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