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Admin Tools

#42301 Disable Admin Tools via FTP

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

Joomla! version
533
PHP version
8.4
Admin Tools version
latest

Latest post by nicholas on Thursday, 25 September 2025 11:35 CDT

krisvrancken

Hi,

I want to try and disable Akeeba Admin Tools via FTP, as I cannot login to the back-end.

I cannot find 'main.php' in the plugins/system/admintools/ directory.
How can I solve the error (Bad Request) I see on the wab page, please?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

You are looking at the wrong troubleshooting page. The page you are looking at is for Joomla 3. For Joomla 4 and later versions it's https://www.akeeba.com/documentation/admin-tools-joomla/atwafissues.html 

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

krisvrancken

Hi,

I"ve restored a website via Akeeba kickstart (brandingstudio.be) to topkotlimburg.be/2023 and topkotlimburg.be/2022.
I am unable to login to both back-end websites, with the credentials of brandingstudio.be

I have tried a lot of things to solve it (htacess, provider-disable.php) ... but keeps getting back to the login screen constantly.
I cannot finf the cause anymore.

Is this something you can assist with, please?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

First, try deleting the .htaccess and .htpasswd files in the administrator directory.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

krisvrancken

These files are not there in this directory.

Using FileZilla with "Force showing hidden files" check in the Server-dropdown menu

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

I see that your restored sites are in a subdirectory. Is your original site in the root of the domain? If so, please note what I have written in https://www.akeeba.com/documentation/akeeba-backup-joomla/restoring-backups.html#general-guidelines 

Do not restore in a subdirectory of your main site. For example, if your site's root is in public_html do not restore to public_html/dev. The reason is that the .htaccess files, which tell Apache (your web server) how to server your site, cascade. That is, Apache will read all .htaccess files in all folders leading to the one hosting your site's index.php file. This will cause problems with the restored site which you will experience as 404, 403 and 500 error messages or blank pages. These have nothing to do with our software and / or the restoration. It's how your web server works. Use a subdomain instead.

Therefore, you'll have to use a subdomain AND make sure the subdomain's web root is outside your main site's web root.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

krisvrancken

Okay,

Made a new restore to https://www.topkotlimburg.be/ in the root with "Akeeba Backup Site Restoration Script (Joomla!) 10.0.6".
I can get to the login screen in the back-end, but still unable to login with credentials from the original website.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

During the restoration, the second to last page is Site Setup. On that page you can select a Super User account and enter a new password. Try that. Does that help you log in?

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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