| 13 June 2009
Posted in Tips and Tricks

I'm not a forgetful person but I've forget my super administrator password because of this terrible day (today was the most terrible day in year).

I will write how i get back my super administrator password. This way will work on Joomla 1.0 and Joomla 1.5 web sites. (IMO, It will work all mambo originated cms like mambo, miacms and elxis)

I will explain this with two way. With a difficult way and with an easy way.

You need to access to your phpmyadmin to be able to access this way. You must also basic knowledge how to use phpmyadmin.

Let me start:

Difficult way to recover Super Administrator password of Joomla! 1.0.x and 1.5.x

1) Register on your web site as new user. Lets say you've registered with test_user username and 123456 password.
2) Open your phpmyadmin and visit jos_users table. Please look the screenshot below. You will need to notice the user_id on this table. 65 is the user_id for my example.



3) Click on the edit link for the test_user account
4) Write 'Super Administrator' to the 'usertype' field. You need to write 'Super Administrator' not Super administrator or super Administrator or super administrator or the others. You must exactly write 'Super Administrator'. Be sure that blocked value is 0 (zero) on this table



5) visit jos_core_acl_aro table and look the screenshot below. You need to get id of the row which contains your user_id as value. For example, I need the id of the row (=aro_id) which the value is 65 (the id of my username). The value i need is 13. Notice this id too.



6) Visit jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map table and look the screenshot. We need to search the aro_id which you have noticed on step 5.



7) When you have found the row which is mentioned on step 6. Edit that row. You must write 25 to the group_id.

It's finished. Your test_user is Super Administrator. You can do what ever you want with that user.

It's time to tell the easy way which i have mention at the beginning of the article. Maybe the most way you've ever read

Eeasy way to recover Super Administrator password of Joomla! 1.0.x and 1.5.x

1. Complete the step 1 and step 2 which is mentioned on above
2. Run the sql query below in your phpmyadmin with replacing $user_id to your new user_id
   

UPDATE jos_users AS u, jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map as aro_map,  jos_core_acl_aro as aro SET u.usertype='Super Administrator', u.gid='25', aro_map.group_id='25' WHERE u.id=aro.value AND aro.id=aro_map.aro_id AND u.id='$user_id'

Feel free to comment on this article. Is it worked for you?