Ever wanted to reset your password in WordPress, but for some reason or other you can’t use the reset password section? 2.5.1 has a bug where the reset password page doesn’t work, so this might be handy for you.
The phpMyAdmin way
Browse into the wp_users table in your database. Find your username and click on the edit icon (
) next to your username.
On the edit page, select MD5 from the Function dropdown next to the user_pass row. Change the value on the user_pass row to your new password and then hit Go.
Now log into WordPress with your new password and it will upgrade your password to the new phpass hashing.
The SQL query way
This applies where your database is wordpress and your login name is admin. Replace PASSWORD with whatever you want your new password to be.
UPDATE `wordpress`.`wp_users` SET `user_pass` = MD5('PASSWORD') WHERE `wp_users`.`user_login` = 'admin' LIMIT 1;
After you login on your WordPress installation, it will upgrade your password to the new phpass hashing.

Comments (14)
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I just upgraded and when I went to log back in ran into this very problem!
You’re a lifesaver!
One thing – I think you might want ‘admin’ instead of `admin` (or so I found…) – otherwise, thank you!
Brian
¿Y no era mas fácil generar el password y reemplazar el de la tabla?
Un saludo.
I also needed to change `admin` to ‘admin’. Otherwise I get this error:
#1054 – Unknown column ‘admin’ in ‘where clause’
Thanks Ryan McCue and Sara!
B
Ben and Brian: I’ve corrected this now, thanks.
Kike: Unfortunately, I don’t speak Spanish
Thank you so much! Worked like a charm!
I went ahead and changed my admin username to chris too, for added security!
Thank you! WordPress has been seriously NOT working for me on so many fronts since 2.5 rolled out.
Thanks it helped.
Thank you so very, very…v.e.r.y. much. I lost my cookies when I upgraded to Firefox 3 and was about to give up and do a fresh install/recreate my entire site there goes my day/::sigh:: when I found this. You made my day! >^_^<
Omigod! You’re a LIFE-SAVER!
Am linking my blog to yours so
others will also know!
THANK YOU and God bless!!
kelly
Singapore
thank you very much ! it’s useful!!
Thanks a lot! ^^
Bravo.
Thanks for this info man, really really need it.
After spending 4 1/2 hours of trying to log back in to WP, you solved my problem immediately. A MILLION thanks.
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