Migration – Unable to access WP admin & database

Hi folks,

I am posting here a bit handicapped as I did not do this migration. A client of mine had their website redesigned in WordPress. The site was developed on another server and URL. I set up a new account on my server for the designer and she migrated the site over. The migration appeared to work fine as the front end is working, however no one had attempted to log in to the wp admin until now to make edits.

The designer attempted to log in using the original credentials she had but was unable to access the site. Most of the usernames return with user not registered. I tried the password reset for the one account that didn’t give the not registered message, but she is telling me she has not received the email for the password reset.

I attempted to access the PHPMyAdmin to manually change the password or somehow access the database to see if there was something I could do to regain access to the back end. The first few times the username and password failed. I attempted to create a new user for the database and added it to the database. When I logged in with this user, there was no database showing up. I went back to study the first username a little more and ended up downloading the wp-config.php for inspection. I then learned that she had made a one digit mistake in the password for the first username when she migrated the site over. Using this password, I was able to log in to MyPHPAdmin, however there was still no database information showing.

I am certainly not a WP or database guru, but it appears to me that there is a disconnect with the database. Maybe she didn’t transfer it properly. I am confounded how the front end would still be running without the database unless it was linking still to the staging hosting or something.

We do have FTP and cPanel access.

Anyhow, looking for some direction how we can gain access to the admin again and where to look for the issues. If worst comes to worst I think we may be able to copy out the copy, images and theme, reinstall WP and repopulate the pages. The site is small, only about 8 pages or so.

Any help is appreciated.