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Ways in Which You Can Fix the Error 403 Message while Using WordPress

However, if one is to talk of the present century which is commonly known as the digital age, an abundance of the culture of blog writing and other internet founded publishing mediums where one can publish articles and content for free or in exchange of money, can be observed. But it is important to remember that blogs have an advantage over keeping written journals because their reach is much more to the millions of internet users than it would have been the case for journals. Sometimes though slight mishandling can lead to an error 403 message popping up, in this article we hope to impart some knowledge to you about how to correctly tackle when this error message appears.

Why This Message Appears

It will do you good to know that this error message will appear on your screen only when you are trying to access a page that you do not have the permission to. In any of these three cases it is likely to appear:

  • When you try to open the dashboard or the page from where you log in.
  • When you install WordPress for the first time.
  • When you are trying to open a page or the other on the website.

The message that appears on your screen may differ from time to time, but it will always occur only when there are some improper settings enabled for a particular page which is not the correct way to operate because you must have full access into all the pages as a WordPress administrator.

The Cause Of The Problem

This problem happens due to the enabling of wrong settings. However, there are always three principal causes which result in this error message appearing, and they are:

  • Your file and folder permission has been altered accidentally.
  • An .htaccess file that has become corrupted and can no longer direct the server to interact with WordPress.
  • A hang up at the time of plugin which often ends up accidentally blocking IP addresses which gives rise to the problem.

It is common for such an error to go away when tackled one by one. 000webhost.com helps you to know the steps thoroughly.

Ways In Which You Can Fix The Problem

It is important that you get a backup of everything that your website contains in the case the troubleshooting does not happen successfully and backups, in fact, should become a regular practice so as to never encounter complete loss of data in case of grave errors.

In the case you do need to access the dashboard immediately at the same time, a backup should prove to be a godsend just by clicking on the best WP Migration and then to Backup tabs where you can click on the ‘Create Backup’ option. You can then choose where you want it to be saved, and for doing so, you have to click on the File option which will provide a plugin that allows you to download one copy of the website in your system. Whenever the need arises to restore it, it can be done by going to the WP Migration and then to Import tab by putting that particular file up. After you do this, ways in which you can troubleshoot the error 403 message have been discussed below.

Start by disabling the plugins:

In case of this particular method, it is taken into consideration that the dashboard cannot be accessed. You will have to find a way to reach the plugin tab and disable all kinds of active security that the plugin has been incorporated with. When you are unable to access the dashboard, you will have to use the File Transfer Protocol to get hold of your files and transfer them from one place to the other in the server without needing the browser. However, you will need to have FTP client, for instance, something like FileZilla. You can also get hold of certain FTP credentials by simply going to the General option from the Settings button.

You will also be required to note down the hostname and the username that you receive and make sure to set the FTP password same as your website’s password. After installing, open Filezilla wherein you will find the three options for Host, Password and Username. When you have access to it, you will have to follow a few steps to disable the plugin that is causing the problem, and they are:

  • Go to the folder named public_html
  • Find out the wp-content and then the plugins folder.
  • Change the name of the folder.

This will get the server to create a new plugin folder after which some steps such as these are to be followed:

  • Change the folder name into the original one and then try to navigate it.
  • Right click on the plugin that comes first and renames it into something easy to remember.

When you access your website at this point and find the error missing, delete the problematic plugin.

Since this is the file that enables the server to interact with WordPress and also lets you know who can open a file or a directory. Therefore, it is absolutely critical for your website. You will be taught how to eliminate any changes to settings in it that could have caused the problem and the steps to find the erroneous file are listed below:

  • Open your website using FTP.
  • Enter the directory using public_html.
  • Try to find the .htacess file and right click on it and then download it.
  • Once the file is downloaded, delete the file.

You will then have the right click on the same directory and click on the Create New file option and then name it. Whatever you name it must contain .htaccess and then you can go on to click the View or the edit option. This will open a new file on to your screen which will be empty and wherein you will have to put a particular code. Following this, you will be asked if you wish to overwrite the existing file with the new one you created and you must say yes. If .htaccess was the reason behind the error 403 message, it should now be solved.