Does your WordPress login page keep refreshing and redirecting when you try to log in to your website?
This issue locks you out of the WordPress admin area, making you unable to work on your website.
In this article, we will show you how to fix the WordPress login page refreshing and redirecting issue.
What Causes the Login Page Refresh and Redirect Issue in WordPress?
The WordPress login page refresh and redirect error is usually caused by incorrect WordPress URL settings or failure to set login cookies.
Normally, when you log in, WordPress validates your username and password and then sets a login cookie in your browser. After that, it redirects you to the WordPress dashboard.
If WordPress fails to set the login cookie correctly or your WordPress admin area URL is incorrect, then you will be redirected back to the login screen instead of the admin dashboard.
Login issues can also be caused by different WordPress errors, such as the error establishing database connection, internal server error, or the white screen of death.
With that in mind, let’s troubleshoot and fix the WordPress login page redirect and refresh issue. You can use these quick links to jump to a specific method:
Note: If you want to try the advanced steps in this WordPress tutorial, then please create a backup of your site first. See our guide on how to manually create a WordPress database backup.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or prefer the written version instead, then please continue reading.
Method 1: Clear Cookies to Resolve Login Issues
WordPress uses cookies for login authentication, so the first step in troubleshooting WordPress login issues is the simplest one. You will need to clear your browser cookies and cache.
In Google Chrome, simply click on the browser settings menu and then select More Tools » Clear Browsing Data.
This will launch the Chrome Settings page with a ‘Clear Browsing Data’ popup displayed on the screen.
From here, you need to select the ‘Clear cookies and other site data’ and ‘Cached images and files’ options.
Next, click on the ‘Clear data’ button, and Google Chrome will clear the browser cache.
Also, make sure that your browser has cookies enabled. After doing that, restart your browser and then try to log in. This should fix the issue for most folks.
We have a complete guide with screenshots showing how to clear the cache and cookies in all major browsers.
Method 2: Update WordPress URL Settings
WordPress comes with settings for the URL of your website and the URL of your WordPress installation.
If you had access to your WordPress admin area, then you could see this option on the Settings » General page.
If these URLs are incorrect, then WordPress will redirect you back to the login page.
Since you are unable to access the WordPress admin area, you will need to edit the wp-config.php file to fix this issue.
The wp-config.php file is a special file in WordPress that contains your important WordPress settings. You can access it using an FTP client or via the File Manager app in your WordPress hosting account dashboard.
You will find the wp-config.php file in your site’s root folder. Simply edit the file and paste the following lines of code just before the one that says, 'That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing'.
define('WP_HOME','https://www.example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','https://www.example.com');
Don’t forget to replace ‘example.com’ with your own domain name.
After that, save your changes and upload the file back to your website.
You can now visit your WordPress website and try to log in. Hopefully, this will have fixed the issue for you. If it didn’t, then continue reading for additional troubleshooting steps.
Method 3: Delete .htaccess File in WordPress
Sometimes, the .htaccess file can get corrupted, which can result in internal server errors or the login page refreshing error.
Simply access your website using an FTP client or via the File Manager app in your hosting provider’s dashboard.
Once connected, locate the .htaccess file in the root directory of your website and download it to your computer as a backup.
If you can’t find your .htaccess file, this guide on why your .htaccess file may be missing can help you.
After that, go ahead and delete the .htaccess file from your website.
Next, open the wp-admin directory, and if there is a .htaccess file there, then go ahead and delete it as well.
You can now try to log in to your WordPress website. If you succeed, then this means that your .htaccess file was stopping you from logging in to WordPress.
Once you are logged in, simply go to the Settings » Permalinks page in the WordPress admin panel and click on the ‘Save’ button without making any changes. This will generate a new .htaccess file for your website.
Method 4: Deactivate All WordPress Plugins
Sometimes, WordPress plugins can cause this issue, especially if there is a conflict between two plugins.
To easily deactivate all your WordPress plugins, connect to your website using an FTP client or via the File Manager app in your web hosting account dashboard.
Once connected, go to the /wp-content/ directory. Inside it, you will see a folder named ‘plugins’. This is where WordPress installs all your plugins.
Simply rename the plugins folder to ‘plugins_backup’. This will deactivate all WordPress plugins installed on your website.
We also have a detailed tutorial on how to deactivate all WordPress plugins when the WordPress admin is inaccessible.
Once you have deactivated all plugins, try logging in to your WordPress site. If you succeed, then this means that one of your plugins was causing the issue.
Method 5: Revert to the Default Theme
WordPress themes can also cause conflicts after upgrading to a newer version of WordPress or the theme itself. To find out whether the problem is being caused by your theme, you will need to deactivate it.
The process is similar to deactivating plugins. Connect to your website using an FTP client. Then, you must go to /wp-content/themes/ directory and rename your current theme directory to ‘themes_backup’.
Once you have done that, then try logging in again. If you succeed, then this means your theme was causing the issue.
You can now reinstall a fresh copy of your theme to see if this resolves the issue. If the problem reappears, then you will need to contact your theme’s support or switch to a different WordPress theme.
Method 6: Reinstall WordPress Core
In rare cases, the persistent login page refresh issue might be caused by corrupted WordPress core files.
These core files are the foundation of your WordPress website and manage essential functionalities. If these files become damaged or overwritten with incorrect code, it can lead to various errors, including login problems.
First, head over to WordPress.org and download the latest version of the software. Once downloaded, unzip the file on your computer. This will create a folder named ‘wordpress’ containing all the necessary files for the reinstall.
Next, you’ll need to connect to your website using an FTP client or the file manager provided by your hosting company.
Once connected, navigate to the root folder of your website. This is the main directory that contains folders like wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes.
At this stage, grab all the files from the ‘wordpress’ folder on your computer and upload them to your website’s root directory.
Your FTP client will ask you to confirm overwriting any existing core files.
Since you’re deleting corrupted WordPress core files and replacing them with new ones, choose ‘Overwrite’ and select the option to ‘Always use this action’ to avoid needing to confirm each file individually.
Finally, click ‘OK’ to begin the upload process. Your FTP client will replace the core WordPress files on your website with the fresh ones from your computer.
Once the upload is complete, visit your website to see if the error is fixed. If the login issue is caused by a corrupted core file or malware, the error message should be gone, and you should be able to log in successfully.
Learn More WordPress Troubleshooting Solutions
Are you experiencing other common WordPress errors and need to find a way to fix them? Here are other articles you can check out:
- How to Fix Error Too Many Redirects Issue in WordPress
- How to Easily Fix This Site Can’t Be Reached Error in WordPress
- How to Fix ‘The Site Is Experiencing Technical Difficulties’ in WordPress
- How to Fix WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error (Step by Step)
- How to Fix the Mixed Content Error in WordPress (Step by Step)
- How to Fix the Invalid JSON Error in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide)
- How to Find and Access WordPress Error Logs (Step by Step)
- How to Fix WordPress Not Sending Email Issue
- How to Fix WordPress Stuck in Maintenance Mode (The Easy Way)
We hope this article helped you resolve the WordPress login page refreshing and redirecting issue. You may also want to see our complete WordPress troubleshooting guide or check out our top picks for the best WordPress plugins and tools to grow your site.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Warren Ganye
I first cleared the cache and cookies. Initially it didn’t work, i couldnt stop the log in loop. This was because i had redirected the url to a sub directory using .htaccess.
I then had to delete the .htaccess file i had updated and created a new copy of it.
After that i was able to log in my wp-admin. Then i went to settings to customise the permalinks settings tag base to the name of the subdirectory i had placed the wordpress installation so that my other pages besides the home page could work.
Hope it helps
Gavin
I’m able to log into WP Admin and then go to visit site and edit and browse from there on Internet Explorer. However on both google chrome and Safari, when I hit “Visit Site” it just takes me back to the admin login page again.. and again etc. I’ve tried everything and I’m just not understanding why it’s letting me get on with life in Internet Explorer but not Google Chrome/Safari. If someone replies to this, thanks for thought and time in advance!
Andy V
Gavin —
Exactly problem i am having. What did you do to resolve it?
Thanks,
Andy
Gilles
Hi,
On my side, the limitation came from a MySQL limitation of 100 Mb in my formula (which I did not know). After having reduced it, I could have access again to WP-admin.
Titus Raj
All above did not work for me.
I migrated from 5.6 php to 5.4php hosting
I then changed the new hosting to 5.6php then did migrate again, it worked.
Shahkar
Hi. I tested every things but not worked for me.
I wanted to create a backup from DirectAdmin but it appears an error in between backing up. It says the wp_usermeta is crashed and repair is not helpful for it.
So I opened the SSH and after login to server, I writed:
cd /var/lib/mysql/[DATABASE NAME]
and then:
myisamchk -r -v -f wp_usermeta
So this table is fixed and my users can login after this.
If you haven’t access to SSH you should contact your hosting support.
I hope it will be useful
Ather
Hey there! I have an active theme named ‘church’ in which i’m customizing a website. When i install plugins and make changes over the website, it works pretty fine. but then when i logout to my wordpress account, the changes made are reverted back. Please help me out!
Thanks in advance
Kingsley
After entering my login details, wp will reload and it wont redirect me to my dashboard. I then read through your guidelines. I tried everything and it was not working for me. The worst is that when I got to the step of delete htaccess, i did it and i started receiving 404 Not Found error on my login page. Please assist
Jason
One-man-show, do it yourself-er here… non computer wiz, banging my head against the wall for 4 days trying to fix this problem. Tried everything on this list, messed with my .htaccess and wp-config files a hundred different ways (which deleting all the .htaccess files worked for a second, until I resaved by permalink settings). . Also of importance was that I had used been using cloudflare for CDN purposes. Lastly, my problems coincided with switching hosting. So after trying everything here and about 1.5 hours on the phone with tech support at my hosting, it ended up being that I had a conflict with the www CNAME record. I serve my site as www and apparently the CNAME record with my new (actually original) host was still pointing at cloud flare. I “paused” my site with cloud flare, and updated the www CNAME record in my web host’s cPanel’s Advanced DNS Zone Editor by removing the (mynamerserver.cloudflare) from the end of themysite.mynameserver.cloudflare.com. Now the www CNAME is simply named mysite.com. Viola! Logged back in and all is good. Phew! On to the next fire, which is now that some of my navigation links on my site are 404-ing…but that’s for another thread. Thanks for this page and the active nature of this site, has already helped me fix/learn a ton.
Cheers!
–
WPBeginner Support
Hey Jason,
Glad you solved it. For 404 errors, check out our guide on how to fix 404 error in WordPress.
Admin
Craig Hodge
I have read through the entire article, and every single comment, tried every idea that has been suggested, and about a dozen others, and nothing works. I am still unable to log in to wp-admin.
Peter Vukovic
Another possibility is that your disk space is full. Wordpress login will fail silently if this is the case.
Vinny O'Hare
I had this issue and instead of going the ftp route I logged into my managewp account and logged in and resaved the permalinks and I was good to go.
Baggy
I found that the file permissions were not correct (group had write access).
stephen miller
Since installing SSL 10 days ago we’re unable to log in to the WordPress blog (all the WP files sit in that directory). The login credentials are accepted but the login page redirects back to itself with fields empty, We’ve tried everything- including everything mentioned in this article:
(Below the last of recommended fixes. The ‘x’ means they were tried to no effect)
x Clear Cookies to Resolve Login Issues
x Deactivate All Plugins
(x*) Revert Back to the Default Theme (there was no problem following a theme change 2 months ago)
x Delete .htaccess File
x Update Site URL (add these to wp-config.php)
define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);
(Did those with no effect)
We’re at our wits end with this. Would really appreciate some help. Remember we can only access the ftp files, not the WP admin area.
If nothing else, can we make a new blog and transfer several years of critical posts to the new one? Or do a re-install of WP via FTP? Please help!
WPBeginner Support
Hi Stephen,
After successfully installing SSL, your WordPress site should be using https instead of http. Please try adding these lines to wp-config.php file
define('WP_HOME','https://example.com'); define('WP_SITEURL','https://example.com');1-click Use in WordPress
Admin
vishal
after clicking the lost password in wordpress based my website still i am stuck over in the same page please help me with the same
Pat Parker
I increased the memory in wp-config and that worked.
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘512M’);
andy
didn’t work fpr me
Connor G
Hi,
I have the same issue you outline in this post, however I’m also getting a “This site is not Secure” flag from Google which I was able to bypass through the ‘Advanced Options’ under the warning. I’ve tried all of the above with no luck. Even adjusting my website url in the PHPmyadmin tool hasn’t stopped me from being redirected.
Is there something else that has gone wrong here further than what you describe above, or is the Google security warning common with this issue?
Thanks a ton!
Lena
Hello there, I tried every trick and my wp-admin page still tell me “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page.” I try loging in through wp-login.php and I see a login page but it redirects me to our homepage. I tried deactivating plugins, themes, and unblocking my IP through wp-config.php with no luck. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
ATRYNA
We have same problem, but after a few minutes and keep trying to loging I can access my wp-admin and the dashboard running normally agan.
Janice Roth
Hi Wordpress experts,
Would really appreciate a voice to calm my panic. My head is spinning. I am not a web expert, just a person setting up my own business site. My site is set up on Wordpress, on a temp URL while I’m still building it. Using RT them 19. Been using it no problem for a while, but now I can’t access the site using my usual user name and password. Keeps saying not valid”
Also, above the log in area there are a whole lot of lines that look like this.
Only 1 looks like this
Warning: ksort() expects parameter 1 to be array, object given in /home/content/html/wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/core/template-functions.php on line 316
About 20 lines look like this
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/html/wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/core/template-functions.php:316) in /home/content/html/wp-login.php on line 394
WPBeginner Support
Hi Janice,
It seems like your theme or a plugin is causing this issue. Please take a look at our step by step WordPress troubleshooting guide to figure out what’s causing the issue.
Admin
barbara
i can’t log in. wordpress won’t accept my name, my password. won’t allow me to create a new reader account under a different address or name. i am completely locked out and have lost hundreds of feeds. i am NOT a blogger – only a follower, and wordpress seems only interested in bloggers, with little or no support for followers. i have tried changing my password several times and even when brand-new, it will not be accepted. i have called the phone number and have gotten either no answer or a message telling me that the number is no longer in service. i am so frustrated i just want my feeds back so i can export them to someplace else.
Sutapa Chatterjee
I am not being able to log in at all, how do I even change the URL settings ?
Ryan
I did the last suggestion where you enter in
define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);
Took a bit to figure out how to do it but it worked perfectly. Thanks!
(BTW you can just do it through cpanel – file manager – and edit the code.)
Kas
I solved it by going to the php my admin and wp_users by changing the username to something else (same for nickname etc..) and saved. Logged in again with the new name and same password and it worked.
andy
didn’t work for me
Nelson Mulama
I had the same problem on multiple migrated websites and none of the above stated solutions seemed to work.
My problem arises from the fact that each time I do the migration, I create a totally new Word Press users who don’t have any posts or pages assigned to them.
The thing with the wp-login.php (for my case) is it was redirecting me to the homepage as I didn’t have any content assigned to the user.
Solution, went to the wp-posts table and assigned one article to the new user using userID (you will find this in your wp-users table)
solved the problem
David Rawlins
Thanks very much. For me it was a plugin that messed things up. Now sorted
Angelo Saponaro
Hi, Can I ask you to come has Solved? Not one of the solutions above me I have helped.
Thank you
Munna Hossain
It is really a common error of WordPress. I also faced this problem. But now I am Ok. All these options have not Worked. Thanks for sharing.
Angelo Saponaro
Hi, Can I ask you to come has Solved? Not one of the solutions above me I have helped.
Thank you
peter
The redirect problem occurred for me after the DNS DDoS attack on Oct 21, 2016.
I found a simple solution by including an admin page in the login path such as:
yourdomain.com/wp-admin/nav-menus.php
Login with this directed right to the menu panel.
After logout, I was able to login normally with just /wp-admin.
Don’t know why, but it worked!
Chris
Hey Peter, this happens to several of my websites as well. I normally go to wp-admin/theme-editor.php because it won’t let me login through wp-admin. When I click ‘Log In’, it just refreshes the login page.
Chris
and I’ve tried the options above, it still didn’t solve the issue.
Lynn Spivey
Thanks Peter!
Thanks so much for posting the link – my computer experience involves FaceBook and Amazon Prime, so I needed someone to tell me to type this and go here! Telling me to paste a code into something that I can’t even figure out how to access wasn’t working for me! I have spent a couple of days trying to log in and was just about to walk away for good! You saved the day, seriously. Hero! (:
Renee Blundon
THANK YOU! This finally finally finally resolved the login and logout issues with my site. I owe you guys big time!! What did the trick was editing the wp-config file with these two lines:
define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);
Thanks again, you guys are amazing!
-Renee
Niall Guerin
You are a superstar. Was really getting frustrated with other tips and guides. I followed your tips, 1 by 1. Nothing worked until the last one using the 2 define statements. In my case, I did a DNS update 72 hours ago. The DNS propagated to most locations within 12-24 hours, but the wp-admin completely failed. I used md5/password update via phpadmin from your other blog tip (also excellently written and illustrated) and was still having no joy so followed this guide as second step. As soon as I did it, the password invalid message then displayed after a test login. Then the password reset link started working also which did not work after all prior error checks. The reset mail was received and worked fine and all stable again. Really really appreciate you putting this together as you just sorted me out big time. Thanks. Niall
WPBeginner Support
Hey Niall,
Glad you found it helpful
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
Admin
Adeolu Adeyemi
Non of the above solutions worked for me. I had to check the php error log, and I saw this
WordPress database error Duplicate entry ‘0’ for key ‘PRIMARY’ for query INSERT INTO `wp_usermeta` (`user_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) VALUES (4, ‘session_tokens’, ‘a:1:{s:64:\”235054a04c368610fe278c9aa25e46f411483bbc6b9dd52fa4574b3ba4d5ecac\”;a:4:{s:10:\”expiration\”;i:1476532105;s:2:\”ip\”;s:3:\”::1\”;s:2:\”ua\”;s:109:\”Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/52.0.2743.116 Safari/537.36\”;s:5:\”login\”;i:1476359305;}}’) made by wp_signon, wp_set_auth_cookie, WP_Session_Tokens->create, WP_Session_Tokens->update, WP_User_Meta_Session_Tokens->update_session, WP_User_Meta_Session_Tokens->update_sessions, update_user_meta, update_metadata, add_metadata
Querying the database to remove the umeta_id with id 0, did it for me.
Amin
you are right bro i have same problem too, but i didn’t get how resolve it u.u
Sommie Njoku
Yup. This did the trick for me!
Go to your database wp_usermeta and change the umeta_id 0 to something else.
Miguel
Last one worked forme
Thanksss
Dami3n
I run around 10 websites and never came across this problem until today. I closed my WordPress site by mistakes whilst doing a long edit. Not sure if this was the issue but on opening Firefox again an trying to login to WordPress i kept being redirected. I noticed i still got an error for logging in incorrectly.
I set off to work to try and find a solution. Renamed theme folders plugins got rid of cache. Nothing worked. I decided this has to be a problem with the .htacess file. Now the problem you have is most sites that you go through a cpanel will not show this file. So grab something like filezilla. To find it. I re uploaded the exact same one to the server and it’s all back to normal must have been a brain fart…. just seems odd that exact same file has fixed the problem.
[edit sorry]
Craig
Great – had this problem for a few days where I sometimes couldn’t log-in, but mostly when I went to view site when I WAS logged in, I’d see the maintenance mode page, as if I wasn’t logged in! Defined the site in WP-Config and problem sorted.
Thanks!
Bhavya
Hello,
My Wordpress Dashboard => Home( Edit Page) still loading what we do?
if i check in view page it shows my website(no errors in this page).
can anyone Please Suggest me.
Richard Taylor
Deactivating Plugins worked for me … thank you so much
Gareth
Deleting the .htaccess file solved my issue!
Thanks guys
Ocean
Defining the site URL worked for me! Thanks a ton!
Tejpal Choudhary
Last one “update site URL” worked for me .
Thanks from the bottom of the heart.
Dave
I had this problem when a site was built a long time ago without using wordpress secret-keys in the wp-config.php file.
When I added the secret keys to wp-config.php as part of upgrading the site’s security I was not able to login (even after trying all of the above fixes) and it seemed that the login page was just refreshing instead of bringing me to the wordpress dashboard.
To solve the login-refreshing problem, I temporarily went back to my old wp-config.php file without the secret-keys and was able to log in.
Kjetil
Last method worked – BUT the Settings > General > Wordpress URL and Website URL are greyed out/ impossible to change + if I remove those two lines from wp-config.php the problem returns.
ANY WAY to change the URL settings – and make them remain correct?
Thanks
PS I also tried to edit the database’s options table (and enter the correct site url in the first line there), but no luck.
Kathy Porter
Chrome > Settings > Advanced > Reset Settings
Chrome finally works like it’s supposed to again! Yay!
Joana Ashford
Yay this worked for me
Steve
LAST ONE WORKED! Huzzah!
David
Ditto!
Debaiss
Most of the time it is the plugins that creates this problem.
Kathy
I tried everything, too, and nothing worked. The problem only exists in Chrome for me.
Kathy
Finally it’s fixed! I reset Chrome.
Julio Fermin
I trying everything and don’t work permanently. What I can do? I am using hostinger and a godaddy domain.
Sagun Khadka
The last method worked for me
Thanks
Kingsley Iyke
Regarding wp-admin login not coming up, I have done all of the above suggestions but non could fix the problem. Can anyone help with new solution. I`ll appreciate. Kingsley Iyke
Van Hallman
I fixed my issue by removing the top 2 lines in my wpconfig.php which were referencing a non existent W# Total cache install.
Janice
Excellent tutorial. Easy to figure out and best of all, following the instructions enabled me to solve my problem quickly!
Turns out a plug-in was the culprit so by renaming the plugin folder I was able to deactivate them all and sign in. (Good thing to know for the future.) I then added them back one by one to determine which plugin was causing the problem.
One thing … please don’t laugh … you have to double click on the plugin folder name to change it. I was right clicking on it to try to rename it (as you do in Windows file explorer) … minor detail I forgot about.
Joni
Any tips if none of these work? Only have the redirect issue when trying to login to Admin. Site seems fine for viewing for everyone. Just the login issue to Dashboard.
Georg
Jepp, the same problem like before… I’ve tried all the tricks, but nothing works…
Please help…
All the other sites with the same WP version still running best – also the login. Only one of the sites (at another provider) doesn’t work (only the login, I mean).
Sorry for my poor english…
All the best
Georg
Georg
Hello,
I’ve found the problem: One or more of three of my plugins caused an data-overflow of one of the fields in the database.
I’ve installed the problematic plugins:
– Simple login log
– Limit Login Attempts
– Rich Counter
The database has a total limit of 1024MB… but it used 1288MB and this caused the problem.
After erasing the content of the database-fields of all of the three plugins and reconfiguring the settings of them, the login was functioning till today…
Best Regards
Georg
Kingsley
Now of this works……. i suspect the database because when comparing it to default wp install AUTO_INCREMENT is missing from the “extra” column on my database
Kingsley
i mean NON work for me
Phoenix
Clearing the cache and cookies helped me. Thank you