Hi! I've had my church's website up for a couple of months (www.brooksidefellowship.org), but all of a sudden, for no reason, I can't get into the administration area! All four people designated as "webmasters" (mysql rank of 7) are not able to get into admin areas. Any ideas as to why this would happen, and what to do???

Thanks!

Francine Le Claire

Francine - thanks for visiting!

Can you provide a little more information about the problems your admins are having?

I'll assume they can log in successfully and the administration link appears in their user menu...but, correct me if I'm wrong.

Do they get an 'No permissions' error or a white screen?

What was the last update you did to your site?

Do you have Protector installed? There is a preference in Protector which determines which IP addresses are allowed in the administration area.

Some basic things to do -
+ Clear your cache and templates_c folders, except for the index.html files, if present
+ Empty the sessions table of the database

Hi! Thanks for the reply!

We admins can log in, but the administration link does NOT appear for us then. It acts like we're just registered members or anonymous users. No error message or white screen. Last changes were made by another admin, and all she does is update the calendar. No admin stuff.

What is "Protector?" I've never heard of it!

Knowing what you do now, do you still recommend:

+ Clear your cache and templates_c folders, except for the index.html files, if present
+ Empty the sessions table of the database?

Thanks so much for your help!

Francine

Yes - I would still clear the cache and templates_c directories, as described.

It seems odd the Administration link does not appear - what happens when you try to access the link directly - http://www.brooksidefello ... /admin.php (after logging in)?

Do you have a recent backup of your database? It might come in handy and having a current backup is always recommended.

Protector is a module that adds another layer of protection - like virus protection and spam filter for your computer. It is an essential module for any XOOPS site.

It says I don't have the right to access this area.

I'll try clearing the cache and templates_c directories and see what happens. Will also check out Protector - funny I've never seen it mentioned on the Xoops.org site!

Haven't backed up the database recently...

Francine

Hi again!

Deleted the contents of templates_c and cache, but still have the same problem...



Interestingly, on logging onto the server, I just ran across this notice:

29-02-2008 13:54 Emergency Network Issue
This issue affects All Servers.

We have some issues on our Networks, so its possible that the service we are hosting for you is not or only slow available.

We are very sorry about the issue and our techs are working hard to resolve the issue as fast as possible.


and

07-03-2008 17:32 SMS API currently unavailable [hide]
This issue affects All Servers.

Due to an unresolved issue we cant offer to send out SMS at this point. All pending messages will be send out as soon we have fixed the issue.
We are sorry for the unconvenience caused by the issue and are working on it to get it fixed as soon as possible.

Think something on THEIR end could be causing this problem???

Francine

It might be something on their end, but there are a few other things to check while they're working it out.

I just noticed you mentioned your users have a rank of webmaster - that will not give them access to the administrator area, it is just a special designation for users. What really counts is the groups they belong to.

Can anyone log in and have the administration menu show up? If so, log in with that user and go to administration. Then in the System Administration, go to Groups. Modify the Webmasters group by clicking on the Modify link. At the bottom will be list of all users in that group and a list of users not in the group. Select and move the desired users to the 'in' side.

If you don't have a user that can log in as an administrator, you will have to go to the database. Here is where you need to backup your database before proceeding. If you look in the database, there is a table that is _groups_users_link. Find a record with your userid in the UID field. Edit that record and make the groupid = 1. You will now be able to log in as administration and make the above assignments for the other users.

As a general practice, I do not recommend using the Webmasters group for anyone except the system administrator. Create a new group and give it the necessary privileges to take care of the day-to-day tasks on the site.

My groupid is already 1 (see below)! And I STILL can't get admin access!


linkid groupid uid
1 1 1

Only I and two other people have admin/webmaster status. Interesting idea, though, to create a separate group for "almost-webmasters", though! I did something similar for church members - I'll email you privately about that.

I'm not able to gain admin access in any way whatever, and I'm lost as to what to do now. I'm going to call the other admin person who updates the calendar, and see if she remembers tweaking ANYTHING else, but her husband or son could have blindly messed around, too (remote possibility, but a possibility nevertheless), so I might not learn a thing...

Any more ideas on how to regain admin access???

Thanks so much!

Francine

Sounds a lot like all the permissions have been removed or altered. In the group_permission table, you should have records for gperm_groupid=1 and gperm_name='system_admin' for gperm_itemid's 1 - 15. You don't have a db backup, huh?

The other thing you can do to get some more information is to turn on debug by updating the debug_mode record in the config table. Set the config_value to '1' and start viewing pages on your site - the errors and queries may provide some useful hints.

Steve, I really appreciate all your help!

Here's a screen shot of my group_permission table - the values don't really look like what you were saying - what do you think of the values in the screen shot? Do they tell you anything? There should be four people with admin status - two for me, and one for each of two other people.


removed the screenshot to protect the db info - Steve

Nope, haven't backed up the db, dumb me... :-/

Francine