The air in the small office felt heavy as watched the "Access Denied" screen flicker on his monitor. It was 2:00 AM, the night before the biggest product launch of his career, and he was locked out of his own website. Wordfence, the digital guardian he had trusted to keep hackers at bay, had turned its sword against him. A few too many failed login attempts while he was caffeinated and clumsy had triggered a total IP block.
Once in, follow above to remove your original IP.
(Truncate) the table to remove all blocked IP addresses. wordfence remove blocked ip
(Note: If you are completely locked out of the admin area, you will need to access your site via FTP or File Manager, rename the wordfence folder in wp-content/plugins to disable it, log in, and then rename it back.)
If FTP sounds intimidating, ask your hosting provider to temporarily disable Wordfence or remove the IP block. Most good hosts (e.g., Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround) will do this for free. The air in the small office felt heavy
Wordfence blocks IPs for several common reasons:
I can provide a step-by-step walkthrough for your specific hosting environment. A few too many failed login attempts while
Getting locked out of your own website is frustrating. One minute you’re logging in, the next you’re staring at a screen that says "Blocked by Wordfence Firewall."