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Joomla 2.5 – User Lost Super Administrator Access

Joomla 2.5 Tutorials – Not too sure how it happened, but one of my super admin user lost Super Administrator access.  I might have accidentally changed it in the backend now I do not have access to the backend with Super Administrator access.

How to fix?  Below I will show you how to do it.  You will need access to your database via the phpMyAdmin through your web hosting provider.  Only make these changes below if you know what you are doing.  Making a mistake will bring down your website.

Overview of How to Grant Super Admin User Super Administrator Access

  • Get the Super Admin User ID in the _users table
  • Get the Super Users Group ID in the _usergroups table
  • Find & Edit the User in the _user_usergroups_map table
  • Change Group ID in the _user_usergroups_map table

Steps:

1.  Get the Super Admin User ID in the _users table

After logging into your database and access your Joomla 2.5 website database.  Along the left navigation you will find all the tables in your database.  Each user you create in Joomla 2.5 is associated with a User ID.  Each User ID is unique.   You will need to associate this User ID with a Group ID  later in Step 4.

Joomla 2.5 - _users table see Super User User ID
Joomla 2.5 – _users table see Super User User ID
  • Search for the table name _users
  • Click on table name _users, click on ‘Browse
  • View your table contents and see in my case my Super User ID = 42
  • That is the User ID I want to have Super Administrator access.

2.  Get the Super Users Group ID in the _usergroups table

Now there is a group ID for the Super Administrators (Super Users).  You will need to find this Group ID number to associate it with the User ID in step 1.

Joomla 2.5 - Super Administrator Group ID _usergroups table
Joomla 2.5 – Super Administrator Group ID _usergroups table
  • Search for the table name  _usergroups
  • Click on the table name _usergroups and click on the ‘Browse‘ tab
  • View the contents and see that the ‘Super Users’ Group ID = 8

3.  Find & Edit the User in the _user_usergroups_ map table

Now we want to match the User ID with the Group ID in the _user_usergroups_map table.  This table is how Joomla 2.5 manages user groups.  It maps the User ID in step 1 with the Group ID in Step 2.

Joomla 2.5 - User groups Map table
Joomla 2.5 – User groups Map table
  • Search for the table name _user_usergroups_map
  • Click on the table name _user_usergroups_map and click on the ‘Browse‘ tab
  • You can see in the above screenshot that my User ID 42 is incorrectly mapped to Group ID 2.  If you look at Step 2, Group ID 2 is an Registered group.
  • So I need to edit User ID 42 to be Group ID = 8
  • for User_ID = 42, Click  on the ‘Pencil‘ icon (second column) to edit the row

4.  Change Group ID in the _user_usergroups_map table

As mentioned above, we are going to edit the Super User to have Super Administrator rights by editing the User ID in the table _user_usergroups_map.

Joomla 2.5 - Change User ID to have Super Administrator Access
Joomla 2.5 – Change User ID to have Super Administrator Access
  • Change field to the following value:
    • group_id = 8
  • Click on ‘Go’

Now if you view your  _user_usergroups_map table, you will see that your Super User account is correctly mapped to Group ID = 8.  You can log into your Joomla 2.5 administrator backend and access your site as a Super Administrator User.

Joomla 2.5 - Super Administrator has Super User Access
Joomla 2.5 – Super Administrator has Super User Access

Thanks,

Elaine

3 thoughts on “Joomla 2.5 – User Lost Super Administrator Access

  1. So I’ve got a bit of an issue, I’ve tried all this an I still can’t get into my back end.
    I’ve got 1 super admin accounts and 2 normal admins, all of which can log into the front end, but not the back end.
    I’ve tried these steps here and I’ve verified that the database took the changes (new username, ID, MD5 pw, and updated the usergroup map) … I can login to the front end with my new username and password for my super admin, and act as super admin on front end (jomsocial)
    I’m not sure why this happened, I didn’t add any plugins or even mess with plugins, all I was doing was updating a menu item graphic and was timed out cuz I was taking to long in GIMP and then upon trying to log back in on back end … completely shut out.
    The only thing thats change today is 1 new user.
    Any suggestions or help about this would be great.

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