2 Easy Ways to Unblock Limit Login Attempts in WordPress

Do you want to unblock Limit Login Attempts on your WordPress site?

WordPress websites are vulnerable to brute force attacks where hackers use automated scripts and long lists of usernames and passwords to crack website login. Since WordPress doesn’t limit login attempts by default, such websites often fall victim to these attacks. 

The good part is that there’s a simple fix to this problem: limit the number of attempts granted to the users to log into your WordPress site.

This article will show you the easy way to unblock Limit Login Attempts on your WordPress site.

Let’s get started!

Table of Content

• What is a Limit Login Attempt?
• When do You Lock Out of Your Own WordPress Site?
• Method 1: Unblock Limit Login Attempts via FTP
• Method 2: Unblock Limit Login Attempts via MySQL
• Final Thoughts
• Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Limit Login Attempt?

The worst thing about brute force attacks is that automated scripts carry out the attacks in almost all events. These programs can try out hundreds of usernames and passwords in a minute. As you can imagine, it is only a matter of time before these scripts guess the proper credentials. 

Since WordPress, by default, doesn’t limit login attempts, it is an easy target for hackers who opt for brute-force attacks against your WordPress websites. 

That’s where the Limit Login Attempts plugins come to the rescue. These plugins allow you to set the number of attempts a user has before they are denied access to your website. As a result, brute force attacks fail. 

When do You Lock Out of Your Own WordPress Site?

We assume you have installed any Limit Login Attempts plugins on your website. Now you are mistakenly mistyping your own password. Let there be any reason, like you recently changed the password or didn’t realize the caps lock was on.

If you keep trying to log into your website using incorrect credentials (mistakenly), you’ll be denied access after exceeding the login attempts limit. 

Note: If you are locked out of your website, you can see a message informing you of Too many failed login attempts. 

You’ll need to unblock limited login attempts in WordPress to regain access temporarily. We’ll show you two ways:

• Unblocking Limit Login Attempts Using FTP
• Unblocking Limit Login Attempts Using MySQL

Method 1: Unblock Limit Login Attempts via FTP

You can easily unblock the Limit Login Attempts by deleting the Limit Login Attempts folder. Once you regain access to your WordPress site, you can reinstall the plugin.

You’ll need an FTP client or the file manager in your WordPress hosting control panel.

Once you are FTP Client or file manager area and navigate to the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. 

The plugins folder contains the files for every plugin on your WordPress site.

Search for the Limit Login Attempts plugin folder; once you find it, delete it to remove it from your website.

When you delete it and try to log in, you’ll find the problem is resolved!

Method 2: Unblock Limit Login Attempts via MySQL

The second method for unblocking the Limit Login Attempts on your WordPress is using a MySQL query. This method requires a basic understanding of MySQL and using phpMyAdmin, a tool accessible from your CPanel.

First, log in to your web hosting dashboard. Navigate and click the phpMyAdmin icon right under the Databases section. 

A new browser window will open up. From here, select your WordPress database and then click on the SQL tab and paste the following query there:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = '' WHERE option_name =
'limit_login_lockouts' LIMIT 1;

Note: The above query uses the default ‘wp_’ database prefix. If you’ve changed your database prefix, then update the query with the correct prefix.

Next, click the Go, and you’ll get the query confirmation message immediately.

This will reset the unsuccessful, and you’ll get access to your WordPress admin area on login.

Final Thoughts

This article helped you learn how to unblock limited login attempts on your WordPress site.

Limiting the number of login attempts for all users is a simple yet effective way of protecting your website against automated brute-force attacks.

Don’t stop yourself thinking about what might happen if you accidentally locked out of your WordPress site with limited login attempts. 

Now try this out and tell us how much it helped you! See our detailed guide on Social Login.

Frequently Asked Questions