It sounds like your account may have lost admin privileges for some reason.
If you are not using Multisite, access your database via phpMyAdmin (most hosting providers offer this in your hosting account’s control panel), go to the wp_users table and find the row for your user_login. Note the ID of this row. Now, go to the wp_usermeta table and find the wp_capabilities row for your user_id. Set the value of this row to:
a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}
Hi James, thanks for your reply.
One question, where is wp_users table? Don’t see it in the list.
Sorry was looking in list on left, clicked database name at top and a list opened in main area. I’m looking at wp_capabilities the meta_value is a:20:{s:13:”administrator”;b:1;s:26:”wpcf_custom_p… do I just change the start from a:20 to a:1 and leave the rest of the string as is?
Thanks for your help
OK, made the change, but the sidebar menu is still empty. Any other ideas?
Thanks for your help
Hm, ok, try making that row exactly like my example.
Since you provided what it was earlier, you can always change it back.
Hi, It’s sorted, got the menu back.
problem was I was logging in with my email instead of my user name – as I said it’s been a while since I’ve logged in to the wp-admin and I’d forgotten. I also made the row as per your example, thanks for your help. The reason I need to get into the backend is because the site – florapal.org – is exceeding the CPU limit, do you have any suggestions about where to look for the problem – or should I open a new thread?
We have some general recommendations at https://projectdmc.org/documentation/article/optimization/