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
![image.png (500.53 KiB) Viewed 3716 times image.png](./download/file.php?id=524&t=1&sid=c7582f13c4fbbfe7cedad4318960aae9)
- 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.