Fixing Persistent WordPress "Your session has expired" error?

December 24, 2007 6:20 AM

I've been a Wordpress user for years and have never encountered this particular problem. When I try to login using the proper password, I get the error message "Your session has expired."

I've cleared my cache, my cookies, etc. I've restarted my browser several times. Didn't help.

Then, of course, I searched the Wordpress forums. I found and tried this fix, and changed my password two separate times following the instructions:

"Try this. I've done this before on 2.1.3 and it seemed to work just fine.
Open phpmyadmin.
Go to your WordPress Database.
Select "wp_users" (It could be what ever you specified in the installation of the DB prefix)
Select your username and select "Edit"
You'll see a line of MD5 in the "user_pass" field. Delete it.
Enter the new password and from the dropdown box select "MD5" (You MUST do that or it wont work)
Click save.
Now try to login with the password you typed in. -NOT the long bit of MD5 you see-
All should be well."

Unfortunately, all is not well. I continue to receive the error message every time I type in the correct password. Also, my user name is replaced by a string of numbers.

When I type in the wrong password, I get "Incorrect password," so at least there is still recognition of the difference between the right & wrong information.

I've tried posting on the Wordpress support forums and have contacted my hosting service, but so far haven't received any responses. (Also, I'm running an outdated version of Wordpress (2.0.5) and would like to upgrade, but I can't do that until I can log in to delete my plugins.)

Any ideas, anyone? Thanks!

posted by maud to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

If it's the plugins you're worried about, just remove whatever is in /wp-content/plugins with whatever ftp program you're accessing the server. But if your theme has some code in it that depends on a plugin, your site will be broken until you upgrade and access the admin again.

Something else you can try: add a new user with phpmyadmin, in the same way, and give it the same userlevel, and see if that lets you log on.
posted by DreamerFi at 8:53 AM on December 24, 2007

Any possibility that your web host has changed the way it handles PHP sessions? I always have to declare a specific path for saving sessions when I use PHP on my host, otherwise I get 'session expired' errors or other problems.
posted by greatgefilte at 12:25 PM on December 24, 2007