Unblocking Yourself

Welcome to this lesson on unblocking yourself.

Sooner or later, almost everyone manages to lock themselves out of their own website.

Don't worry—it happens, and Admin Tools provides two straightforward ways to regain access.

The first, and easiest, method is Rescue Mode.

When your IP address has been blocked, you'll see a message explaining what has happened.

That message includes a Rescue Mode link.

Open the link and replace This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the email address of one of your Joomla Super Users.

Submit the form and Admin Tools will send you a confirmation email.

Open the email and click the Rescue Mode link.

For security reasons, that link is only valid for fifteen minutes, and it must be opened using the same browser and the same computer that requested it.

The link takes you directly to the Joomla administrator, where Rescue Mode is temporarily enabled.

Once you've logged in, open the Admin Tools component.

You'll immediately see a message confirming that Rescue Mode is active, together with a button to unblock your current IP address.

Click the button to remove the block.

Once you've successfully unblocked yourself, click End Rescue Mode.

Your website is now fully protected again, and you can continue working as normal.

If Rescue Mode isn't available, or you can't access the email account for your Super User, you can use the second method.

This requires FTP access, or your hosting provider's file manager.

I'll use FileZilla, but any FTP client will work.

Connect to your website and browse to:

plugins/system/admintools/services

Locate the file named provider.php.

Rename it to something like provider.disabled.php.

Renaming this file temporarily disables the blocking features of Admin Tools, allowing you to access your Joomla administrator again.

Return to your website and log in normally.

Then open the Admin Tools component.

You'll see a warning that the protection plugin has been disabled, together with a button that lets you unblock your current IP address.

Click the button to remove the block.

The final step is to re-enable the plugin.

On many hosting providers, Admin Tools can restore the file automatically by clicking the link shown on the warning message.

If that doesn't work, simply use your FTP client to rename the file back to provider.php.

Once you've done that, Admin Tools is fully operational again, your IP address has been unblocked, and your website is once again protected.