WordPress login error: “upgrade.php…”

WordPress login goes wrong?

White login page and error:“upgrade.php?%2Fwp-admin%

Problem

After logging in,the page remains white and the browser URL contains this text:

"/upgrade.php?_wp_http_referer=%2Fwp-admin%2F"

Reason

WordPress tried an automatic update, which went wrong. The files were updated, but the database was not. Now the database does not fit. There should have been a dialog that WordPress needs a database update, which you can then start at the push of a button. At this point, however, there is only a white page instead.

Our solution

We have successfully tested the following solution (WordPress 6.3 – August 2023):

  1. We go to the WordPress directory “wp-login” via FTP.
  2. We open the file “update.php”.
  3. There we change the word “true” to “false” in the line “define( ‘WP_INSTALLING’, true );”.
  4. Now we refresh the page and get the dialog we are looking for:
  5. We click the update button.
  6. We go to Update and there to WordPress “reinstall” (this installs everything cleanly again and undoes our change to “upgrade.php”, among other things):

 

 

  Done!

Other solutions

Here you can find further solutions: https://www.developingsense.com/blog/problem-solved-upgrade-php_wp_http_referer/

Categories

Carl D. Erling, Berlin, CTO
Carl D. Erling, CTO

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