Category: Tech Support

A wordpress plugin was locking in out of the admin log-in.  FTPing in and renaming the offending plugin didn’t do the trick – it just broke the whole site. So I knew I needed to deactivate all plug-ins so I could get back in.

Thanks to Jeff Star’s post here, it was easy-cheesy and I was able to zip into PHPmyAdmin to quickly disable all plugins in a WordPress install.  Here’s part of his post:

In the blink of an eye..

Before beginning, make a backup copy of your database. Then, login to your database using phpMyAdmin (or whatever), and navigate to the “active_plugins” column of the “wp_options” table using the following SQL query (edit the default WordPress table prefix “wp_” if needed):

SELECT * FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'active_plugins';Once the active_plugins column appears, click to edit it. You will see something similar to the following, depending on the number and type of plugins you have installed:

a:31:{i:0;s:13:"AddMySite.php";i:1;s:19:"akismet/akismet.php";i:2;s:23:"all_in_one_seo_pack.php";i:3;s:16:"authenticate.php";i:4;s:28:"breadcrumb-navigation-xt.php";i:5;s:18:"codeautoescape.php";i:6;s:37:"contact-coldform/contact_coldform.php";i:7;s:32:"custom-query-string-reloaded.php";i:8;s:30:"customizable-post-listings.php";i:9;s:33:"dd-sitemap-gen/dd-sitemap-gen.php";i:10;s:20:"download-counter.php";i:11;s:13:"feedcount.php";i:12;s:13:"full_feed.php";i:13;s:15:"get-weather.php";i:14;s:36:"google-sitemap-generator/sitemap.php";i:15;s:13:"gravatars.php";i:16;s:19:"kill-admin-nags.php";i:17;s:18:"landingsites13.php";i:18;s:30:"nofollow-free/nofollowfree.php";i:19;s:17:"ol_feedburner.php";i:20;s:16:"plugins-used.php";i:21;s:22:"popularity-contest.php";i:22;s:39:"search-everything/search_everything.php";i:23;s:27:"simple-tags/simple-tags.php";i:24;s:26:"simple_recent_comments.php";i:25;s:18:"simple_twitter.php";i:26;s:25:"subscribe-to-comments.php";i:27;s:24:"the-excerpt-reloaded.php";i:28;s:18:"theme-switcher.php";i:29;s:9:"top10.php";i:30;s:16:"wp-db-backup.php";}That entire array of code represents every active plugin on your site. Thus, to quickly disable all plugins without using the WP Admin area, highlight the entire block of code, cut it out, and paste it into a safe, offline text file. After removing the code, click the button to save your changes and that’s it. All WordPress plugins are now deactivated (yet still installed, and with all plugin options intact). This obviously is a huge time-saver that really comes in handy during those mission-critical, time-sensitive situations where every second counts. Once you are ready to re-activate your entire set of plugins, simply cut/copy & paste the preserved code back into the “active_plugins” field. Click save and done. Again, don’t forget to backup your database before editing it 😉

There is more info at his post and I suggest going over and checking it out. He also has quick ways to nuke and enable plugins.