Broken Website and Disappearing Email

  • My WordPress website went down, and every time I tried to open it, it reads: There has been a critical error on your website.

    From my understanding, when this happens, I am meant to receive a recovery email to help fix the website; which I do not have in any folder of my email, and yes I have checked thoroughly (Inbox, Spam, All Mail, Updates, Promotional, Social, etc.), which is a lot more than I should need to considering the only emails that went to that account were from WordPress, Elementor, and ProFreeHost (which is what I used to setup the domain), and they stopped coming at the time that the website went down.

    I have no email with a recovery link, and seemingly not even an account with WordPress (this is an alt I made to test something). When I tried to login and create a forum post with the account associated with the website, it didn’t work. When I tried to recover password even though I know I had it right, (happens to the best of us) it said that there was no account for the email, and I know that’s the right one, because I just do… but I also have emails from WordPress and Elementor about plugin updates, etc., on the email account.

    When I tried to recover my password with my username, it worked (so the account still exists but the email has been disconnected) and no, 100%, I was not hacked, and no one else has the login information (nobody even new about the website I was still building it).

    I found another similar forum post from early last year, and one of the replies had something about pasting: /wp-login.php?action=entered_recovery_mode , behind the domain, which I tried, and all it did was give the same message, except it told me to check my email, which I did, and still nothing there.

    I also tried going in through the backend with: /wp-admin/ , and through the ProFreeHost control panel (which by the way, says my website is still active and the email that I signed up with on both WordPress and ProFreeHost to create the WP website is working on PFH still), and neither of these attempts worked.

    I don’t have any way to access the website files, plugins, etc. from outside the dashboard (though, I don’t even know if that would be possible, so maybe there’s something there that I don’t know in terms of a fix).

    Kind of desperate for a fix at this point, it seems nothing is working. I’m making this post as my last effort before contacting a number. Which given I’m in Germany and wouldn’t be able to communicate with a German operator for my lack of ability to speak German, I anticipate it is going to be an absolute headache with also potentially no good result (as I have come to experience while being here).

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Did you recently install a new plugin or theme?

    I suggest you to check the error logs on your server in order to find out a more specific error message that might tell us the problem. If you need help locating them, ask your hosting provider to help you with that.

    Moderator t-p

    (@t-p)

    There has been a critical error on your website

    Follow a2hostingrj’s sggestion.

    I have no email with a recovery link,

    Possible reasons for not getting email see https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/password-reset-not-sending-email/?view=all#post-8988847

    Also, you may find this useful https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-wordpress-not-sending-email-issue/

    Thread Starter testingthisbullshit

    (@testingthisbullshit)

    Thank you, these suggestions were things I hadn’t tried, yet, but unfortunately they didn’t work.

    I wasn’t able to retrieve error logs, because PFH only says it accounts for 7 days, and when I tried to download the logs anyway, to see if it would hold anything or if the error was reoccurring and what not, it brought me to an error page (the tab was titled: 403 Forbidden) that was bolded: “Forbidden,” and then under that, it read: “You don’t have permission to access /panel/modules-new/errorlogview/index-content.php on this server.” Which is confusing, because I tried to download them from the ONLY account that was ever connected, thus, the one that was used to set everything up.

    After that, I tried to reset my password through phpMyAdmin, and I followed the steps in the forum link (find wp_user, click edit, change the password in the pw box, and the select MD5 from the dropdown menu); however, when I pressed “Go,” to save everything, the password still didn’t work.

    When I went back to see if I had messed anything up in typing in the password, the password had just changed back to a new random string of letters and numbers (similar to how it had been when I first opened up the wp_user file). So, I tried copy pasting the randomly generated password in, but that also didn’t work.

    So, I tried to go back through editing the wp_user and changing the password to something more complicated, to account for the possibility that it didn’t save due to not meeting password requirements; I set the dropdown to MD5, clicked “Go,” and tried to login – again to no avail.

    Then, I went back to the edit interface in wp_user, and saw that my email was listed there, the one that had disappeared, so presumably it was still connected, so I tried to go through the lost password feature again for no result, then I tried to load up the website again and see if it would prompt the server or whatever to send a recovery email – it didn’t.

    Then, I tried to change the email through phpMyAdmin. That saved without turning to something random or getting reverted, and when I tried to login with that (via the random string of letters and numbers that it decided to convert to after that save), it didn’t work. So, I tried it again with my password (the complicated one), that didn’t work.

    Then I tried to use the new email to recover password and when I put it in, it just says: Error: There is no account with that username or email address. Also, I of course tried logging in with my username, and using the complicated password after going through the process again, and also the random string and, you guessed it, neither of those attempts worked.

    I also found out that I can set the password and email without actually clicking edit (and it would still show up when I clicked edit), but that also did not work when I tired to login with that information. I also tried doing the edit without going into edit mode, then going into edit mode with the new information having saved, and changing the dropdown to MD5 again, which after saving, just turned the password back to a random string. Regardless, I went through all the attempts again: login with my password that I typed, login with the random password that got generated, and nothing worked.

    I wanted to try the MySQL method linked in the forum, and everything went fine. It set the hash password properly, etc., and when I went to login again, it didn’t work. I also used MySQL to set a new email (as I did with phpMyAdmin), and then when I logged in with that, it said: Unknown email address. Check again or try your username. Then, I tried to forgot password with the email set through MySQL and, once again, it said: Error: There is no account with that username or email address.

    I also performed these exact attempts, but with changing the username through MySQL, and logging in like that, but it also did not work. I also tried the method on ftpupload.net, but the site just doesn’t work/load for whatever reason.

    I’m again lost and confused. I don’t understand why these things aren’t working. I’m literally using the login information that it says in phpMyAdmin’s user files, and it’s not working. I don’t know what, if anything I’m doing wrong, and if it’s not something I’m doing wrong, then why isn’t it working? Is there anything else I can try?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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