What to do if you find that wp-admin is not accessible

Problem

When attempting to go to www.yoursite.com/wp-admin, you see a 404 Page Not Found error, yet the rest of the website is still accessible.

Workaround

Try adding to access the login page through another filename: www.yoursite.com/wp-login.php

If this works, then you can follow the troubleshooting tips below to fix the issue.

How to fix

  1. If you’re able to successfully log in using www.yoursite.com/wp-login.php, then navigate to Settings > Permalinks.
  2. Take note of the existing permalinks settings so that you can put them back later.
  3. Change the permalink settings to something else and click Save.
  4. Change the permalink settings back to the original and click Save.
  5. Test the original problematic URL to see if this fixes it: www.yoursite.com/wp-admin
Permalinks settings page
Permalinks settings page

Why this works

WordPress uses special code to access the site through various urls. Sometimes, this cache can get corrupted or lost for some reason- maybe you installed a new plugin, or there was a WordPress update, or something else. By re-saving the permalinks settings, this causes WordPress to delete the old settings and recreate the url scheme. Tada!