Hi all,
I am helping a client update her website. She is a poet/retired professor of an older generation and is not very familiar with technology. She had a graduate student back in maybe ’08 or ’09 make her website through wordpress ([rachelblauduplessis.com](https://rachelblauduplessis.com)), and she is looking to have it updated. The problem is that the password/username she had written down many years ago is not working, and the email address tied to the account doesn’t seem to work for recovery either (it pops up an error that there’s no account with that email address). But what’s weird is that she has records of wordpress emailing her about site updates to that email address. That means it’s the email associated with the account right? Or is it possible to have notifications like that sent to a non-account email?
She doesn’t have any proof of payment that she can find in her email, no transaction ID# or activation URL/key or 2-factor auth key. (Again, the site was made in 2009ish and maybe the last time she touched it was 2015). Without this info I can’t use the account recovery system through wordpress. I’m surprised the site is even active because she said she hasn’t been paying for it (though maybe it’s a recurring charge somewhere).
WordPress doesn’t have a direct customer service email address or line, so I haven’t found a way to ask them. I’ll also try posting this in the wp forum.
It’s not a big deal to just make another site from scratch but it is an issue to have the old site’s domain name still active, especially because she’d like to keep the same domain name for a new site. As far as I can tell, I can’t transfer the domain name without being able to access the wp account because she told me the domain was purchased through wp.
Is there any course of action I can take? My next plan was to just make a new domain name, but I want to exhaust other options before moving to that one. Any advice or suggestions will be well appreciated!
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WordPress has an admin email in settings that can be different from any user account. Most likely that’s why she’s getting those emails but can’t login.
A WordPress developer could solve this issue in less than a few minutes.
CPanel?
Have ya tried logging into where it’s hosted, and changing the values in the database? You can set up a new email & password. Just be sure to encrypt the password with md5
Edit to add you can still find out where it’s hosted if you google how to find out the hosting provider. Whois
If you have SFTP access to the server the site is hosted in you can upload a temp php file to the main site directory called add-user.php and write a script to add a new WordPress user with set credentials (I have one you can use, DM me if you want it just please change the credentials to something unique), then you can visit https://(siteaddress).com/add-user.php to trigger it. After that you can login with the newly created credentials
You can `UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass = MD5(‘enterApassHere’) WHERE ID = 1;` (assuming her user ID is 1) if you can get at a command line on the web server (or into PHPMyAdmin), and that will reset it manually to whatever you want. Holler privately if you want a hand.
This site is hosted at Bluehost, either her account or someone else’s. Have her engage with Bluehost support.
who does she pay every year to keep the domain name? whatever she wants to do she needs to get into the DNS records as the owner of the site. I know if she has the site with Bluehost they offer WordPress and I would guess they could help. she has been paying bills this whole time so she must have something
websites send recovery codes and is is vital to keep those
it’s similar in nature to when I worked at financial firms. person moves and never changes their address and 7 years later the company send their money or stocks to the state since it went through the Escheatment Process. it’s the person’s responsibility to keep up with things.