Sign in problem

Hi, @imaquila

Sometimes, emails don’t get trough, or end up in Spam. This article lists seven ways to reset your website’s password. Any one of them will work and do the job.

Resetting Your Password

Find the one that’s right for you and use that. I personally find this and this to be the easiest ones.

Hope this helps,
Kind regards!

Should a reset email take hours to be sent? If not, what should I try next?

That 100% depends on your hosting server, and some hosting servers (and hence the websites on them) cannot even send emails at all. (Not that WordPress can only request for an email to be sent, but it’s not WordPress that actually delivers the mails.)

On a properly functioning server, you should be able to receive emails instantly or at most within a few minutes. If it’s taking “hours”, there must be a problem somewhere.

— Have you check your email spam box already?
— Have you been receiving these emails from the site (other than this password reset email)?

Other than via email, There are other ways to reset your admin password. Here’s the official guide:

Resetting Your Password

Thanks Vlad,
I’m not comfortable editing php but the first option listed looks easy enough. The problem is how can I access the Administration Screen without logging in? Is there an address that I can type in to access the Administration screen directly?

Is there an address that I can type in to access the Administration screen directly?

There isn’t such an address, or else it would be used by ‘bad guys’ to access any website.

There are other methods that don’t require Dashboard. If you don’t want to edit php files, you could try the phpMyAdmin method.

The phpMyAdmin method also came with a warning. I don’t want to mess with anything that comes with a warning because I don’t trust myself NOT to make things worse.
I’d REALLY like the email to work like it should!

Maybe I need to give up on this website and start over using something easier than WordPress.

I am sorry you find things a bit difficult. If you do regular backups (that is always recommend), then there’s no need to worry you will mess things up.

I don’t want to mess with anything that comes with a warning because I don’t trust myself NOT to make things worse.

Adding one line of code in a php file is quite safe. If something breaks, you can just Ctrl+Z in the file editor you are using and revert the change.

I’d REALLY like the email to work like it should!

That is most probably a server problem and you should contact your hosting provider to fix that.

Maybe I need to give up on this website and start over using something easier than WordPress.

However, if the self hosting version of WordPress at www.ads-software.com seems too complicated to deal with and you don’t like the idea of hiring a web developer to help you (don’t ask nor accept any job offer on these forums!) you might consider the WordPress.com version. To clear up any confusion, WordPress.com and www.ads-software.com are two different entities: https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/wordpress-vs-wordpress-com/

Hi Vlad,
Thanks for your patience. When WordPress works, it’s fine but when I can’t sign in to my own website using my user ID and password which should work and then I’m forced into messing with php programming which I know nothing about, that’s when I have a problem. I have no aspirations of being a web developer which is why I opted for WordPress. I have a very small website so, if forced to, I could start over with Wix or Weebly or some other web builder if I must but I’d rather stick with WordPress if possible (since I’m already familiar with it). On the other hand, if I can’t sign in to get to my Admin page, my website will be useless anyway. It’s a sad situation but I’m grateful that at least I don’t have a large complicated website if I’m going to have to start over again.