Question

I am working on WordPress and I completed my project locally. I then moved it to my live server and did not change anything, I just made changes in the config file (database name, username and password).

Now my site is working fine on the front-end but I can’t get access to the admin panel as every time it gives me the error message:

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

Google searches indicate that most of the errors occurred due to a change in the prefix but in my case its the same as on local. Also, the permissions of my directories are 755 and that of files is 644 but still am facing the same issue.

How might I go about fixing this?

Answer 1

Have you changed the prefix of your database tables? I’m 90% sure, that this is your problem.

The thing is that WordPress uses the $table_prefix variable for forming the option and usermeta keys names, where it’s storing the roles and capabilities information. So once you change the prefix, but don’t update your db, you get this error. Here’s how to fix it – execute this SQL command through phpMyAdmin, or a different interface for interacting with your DB(you can do it with PHP as well):

UPDATE `{%TABLE_PREFIX%}usermeta` SET `meta_key` = replace(`meta_key`, '{%OLD_TABLE_PREFIX%}', '{%NEW_TABLE_PREFIX%}') WHERE option_name like '{%OLD_TABLE_PREFIX%}%';
UPDATE `{%TABLE_PREFIX%}options` SET `option_name` = replace(`option_name`, '{%OLD_TABLE_PREFIX%}', '{%NEW_TABLE_PREFIX%}') WHERE option_name like '{%OLD_TABLE_PREFIX%}%';

Where:

• {%TABLE_PREFIX%} is your current $table_prefix(as set in wp-config.php)
• {%OLD_TABLE_PREFIX%} is your previous $table_prefix
• {%NEW_TABLE_PREFIX%} is your new(current) $table_prefix – it will most-likely be the same as your {%TABLE_PREFIX%}.

So if your old $table_prefix was wp_test_ and your new one is wp_, you would do this query:

UPDATE `wp_usermeta` SET `meta_key` = replace(`meta_key`, 'wp_test_', 'wp_') WHERE option_name like 'wp_test_%';
UPDATE `wp_options` SET `option_name` = replace(`option_name`, 'wp_test_', 'wp_') WHERE option_name like 'wp_test_%';

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EDIT: As @Francisco Corrales noted, if you are having troubles accessing an admin page that you created(if you don’t write PHP, this is not your case), you can check out this link: WordPress Error while developing a plugin -"You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page."

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EDIT 2: Thanks to @Kasper Souren for suggesting that you might want to add a WHERE clause to the options UPDATE query. If you don’t do this, you might accidentally update some other option inadvertently. I have added the WHERE clause to all sample queries. If you are sure you don’t need it, then feel free to remove it at your own risk.