Not often I make an update these days - site is mainly still up for historical purposes but I was on last night removing someone's details at their request and decided to ban a spammer. 
 Not sure what happened, maybe they had a weird IP saved or something, but once I hit ban, nobody *even admin* could log in - just this message  
		
			
 
			-  oof
 
		
		  In case I have to fix it again, the tradition is I post the solution here, in case it helps someone else or at very least future me. 
 1. removed all recent IP bans directly from banlist in database 
 2. tested - still same error
 3. remembered phpbb caches everything in it's database, so changes don't always appear immediately.
 4. bust brain on how I can purge cache while locked out of the board - button is in admin panel, requiring login
 5. google it & find a page on 
phpbb forums 6. Make afile.php with code in it as follows:  
- Code: Select all
 <?php
 
 define('IN_PHPBB', true);
 $phpbb_root_path = './';  // Relative to your phpBB installation path
 $phpEx = substr(strrchr(__FILE__, '.'), 1);
 include($phpbb_root_path . 'common.' . $phpEx);
 
 $cache->purge();
 $auth->acl_clear_prefetch();
 
 die( 'done' );  
 7. Open it in browser - it says "Done"
 8. Fixed!  board lets us back in again.