Blog boots its bummed proprietor

October 16, 2006 3:42 PM

My Movable Type blog won't let me log in.

Running 3.15, with plenty of disk space. I woke this morning to set up my daily posts and my username and password got rejected. Weird. I tried a variety of things, including having a new password sent to me. Once that let me in, I found I am no longer the admin, there are 4 blogs installed but none visible. My first thought is a hacker (why my silly blog?) or a database fart.
Is there anything I can do to get in there and restore my blog and archives? I do have full FTP access. Grrrrrrr.

posted by moonbird to computers & internet (18 comments total)

Do you have shell access to your mysql database or do you have phpmyadmin access? You can get into the database directly, or let someone familiar with MT do it for you.
posted by SpecialK at 3:43 PM on October 16, 2006

Yep, have phpmyadmin access. Going through everything right now and found a new password by my user name. Tried it, no dice.
posted by moonbird at 4:10 PM on October 16, 2006

Ok, user_pass is encrypted. It looks like an md5 hash. If you update the user_pass field next to your name with this:

3858f62230ac3c915f300c664312c63f

it should change your password to 'foobar'.
posted by SpecialK at 4:26 PM on October 16, 2006

Oh, nevermind, you got in. One sec while I figure out how to hack admin priviledges back to you...
posted by SpecialK at 4:27 PM on October 16, 2006

Ok. Grab your user_id from the wp_users table. Then look in wp_usermeta for your user_id (mine's 1) and wp_user_level. Set your wp_user_level to 10.

Voila. Admin access.

Good luck. And don't forget to upgrade. Contact your web host's technical support if they're responsible for it.
posted by SpecialK at 4:29 PM on October 16, 2006

hmmm, I'm a n00b when it comes to SQL. Changed the value with the hash, and still get invalid login. Where can I find the wp_users table? Here's what I'm working with:

posted by moonbird at 4:54 PM on October 16, 2006

SpecialK: The instructions appear to be for a WordPress blog, but moonbird is asking about Movable Type.
posted by jaden at 4:55 PM on October 16, 2006

ps: I posted this in the MT forum and nuttin' so far. Thanks for all your helpage, SpecialK.
posted by moonbird at 4:59 PM on October 16, 2006

D'Oh!

Jaden for the win.
sorry. I was trying to help and forgot to listen, er, read. I think it's a bad day, I just got accused of that by a lady friend too.

Anyway, general gist: Give yourself admin permission if you can figure out how, and reset your password.
posted by SpecialK at 5:01 PM on October 16, 2006

I believe Movable Type uses SHA-1 for the passwords, so try this value for a password of "foobar" (put it in the author_password field)

8843d7f92416211de9ebb963ff4ce28125932878

In other words, put the value above in the author_password field of the database (for your username), then try logging in with your username and the password of "foobar".
posted by jaden at 5:08 PM on October 16, 2006

D'oh. I just realized what SpecialK already realized, that you can already login.

Try changing author_can_create_blog to true.

As for getting back your blog and archives, does your web host do nightly backups?
posted by jaden at 5:12 PM on October 16, 2006

Well, I can log in to FTP and SQL, but not my MT install. I tried the new hash you suggested, but nada. Author_can_create_blog is set to 1.
posted by moonbird at 5:23 PM on October 16, 2006

I believe they do (hostingmatters.com).
posted by moonbird at 5:23 PM on October 16, 2006

I must have missed something. In your question you said MT sent you a password and that let you in but you weren't admin. Wasn't that logging into MT?

As far as backups, you're right. According to their knowledge base (number 4) they do daily backups. I'm not sure how easy it is to get the data from the backups, but that would be a way to get all of your old posts.
posted by jaden at 5:36 PM on October 16, 2006

Jaden, I'm not 100% clear on the issue you're having, but I work with the Movable Type team and I'm happy to help you get thing straightened out. We should also get your blog upgraded to the latest version of MT so that you're secure.

First, make sure to backup your whole database to your computer using phpMyAdmin so that you have a safe copy, and then shoot me an email to [e-mail] and I'll help you track down the rest.
posted by anildash at 5:47 PM on October 16, 2006

Right, I could get in there, but without admin privs. Now, after trying the password hashes, I can't get in at all. I've emailed Anil and in the meantime, please keep any interesting ideas coming.

I'd especially like to know what may have caused this. There was nothing server side that was tinkered with last night according to hostingmatters.
posted by moonbird at 6:13 PM on October 16, 2006

I haven't seen this mentioned yet - you may want to try using MT Medic. It hasn't been updated in awhile but when I used it recently on a 3+ installation it worked fine.
posted by Famous at 9:40 PM on October 16, 2006

Hey everyone, thanks for your ideas. Ultimately, it was a database failure at my host. They just now corrected it, and everything seems to be working...
posted by moonbird at 9:27 PM on October 19, 2006