About: Sheri Garisek

Hi Brian,

I had the same problem. It was awful. I had been working away one day and then all of a sudden I couldn’t get in to my sight. I was locked out for 6-8 weeks until I was able to find and hire another web developer who was able to get me back in again.

My web developer told me I was being switched from an administrator to a member and therefore was not being given access to the admin panel. I locked myself out several times and called him to get me back in every time. With his administrator status he would go in to my user profile and change me back to an administrator.

After 5 months from the first time this happened I finally isolated the page that was the culprit, but also found another possible cause. I had a page that my first developer had named Authorize Return (auth_return). Every time I clicked on it either from the dashboard pages list or on my sight I would get locked out. I am on a lot of pages every day so to finally isolate the page took some time. It was something screwy about how the page was programmed. I don’t know what to say. I just don’t even touch it any more. I want to delete the page but I haven’t been able to determine where or if it is used in the payment process. I am not a web developer but I try to solve my own problems and am careful about deleting things.

This is how I finally figured out to get into my sight: I would sign in and I would get an Order Now page. This page was programmed as my Welcome Login Page. I would hit Home and would still get the Order Now page. I was locked out! What I did instead (finally) was hit another tab in my menu bar across the top. I chose Contact Us. Then from that page I clicked Home and typed in the /wp-admin. Wa-la! I was able to get in!! Then I went back and immediately changed myself back to an administrator.

Here is where I think the main problem is. In s2member under General Settings>Member Profile Modifications there is a field entitled “Redirect Members away from the Default Profile Panel?”. The recommended setting is yes (for security reasons, supposedly). The yes answer will lock people out of the admin area and redirect them to the Welcome Login Page. At least that’s what the field says on my page. I haven’t tried changing the setting to No, but I think it would solve the problem.

Another thing I did was create a second admin profile for myself. In case I locked myself out with one user name and password I could use the second one to get in and change the first one back from member to administrator.

I can’t tell you how frustrating this has been for me. I hope my experience can be of some help to you.

Good luck!

Sheri