Unable To Log into WordPress After Plugin Updates
This post is a perfect example of why I have such a healthy dislike for WordPress. Yesterday, Sunday morning, April 12th, 2026, I logged into one of my longtime WordPress websites and noticed I had 10 plugins pending an update. Nothing unusual there. So I FIRST made a complete backup of the entire site, then updated all the plugins.
Still, nothing unusual there.
Later that evening, I decided to post my take on a news article I had read. Lo and behold, I was unable to log into my own website. I suspected it might have something to do with an .htaccess rule I had put in to allow only MY IP to log in, since I had once found that thousands of spam user accounts had been created on my site.
Then I remembered I had removed that rule after blocking user account creation on that site entirely. I checked anyway. Nope. It was not my rule blocking me. What I did find in my cPanel was error log after error log. Something had gone horribly wrong with the update.
I cannot blame ANY plugin, simply because I have exactly ZERO idea which one, or even which COMBINATION, is at the root of this issue.
I'm lucky I was careful enough to make a full site backup before updating those plugins. That gives me the option to delete the entire Wordpress installation, reinstall Wordpress and restore my backup. However, like most WP sites that have been around for a while, that thing is an almost 1.5 Gig bloated upload over my 17.6 Mbps island upload connection; it's NOT going to be any fun waiting on that backup to finish.
This Is Why I Built C.A.R.L
C.A.R.L has no plugins, no third-party software that may end up "fighting" each other. Everything is built in right from the get-go. And even IF there ever WAS going to be a conflict, I would have seen it FIRST and dealt with it before it ever got to you. There can be no "signup" spammers creating accounts on your C.A.R.L install.
I built the C.A.R.L CMS to be bulletproof! You get the full functionality of a CMS, without any of the associated headaches! One License gives you unlimited installs.
