How to Recover a Lost Joomla Username and Password

We've had several people recently contact us after losing the login to their Joomla site. Often they can't remember or just don't know both the username and password. Here's how to recover if you've been locked out of your Joomla 1.5 site:

Step 1: You will need to find access to your Joomla database. Start by going to the control panel provided by your hosting company, where you set-up email accounts and so-on. The most common way offered to access the database is called "phpMyAdmin". Look for a little sailing ship logo like the one on the right.

Step 2: Click to access your databases.
Step 3: You'll see a list of databases on the left-hand side. Hopefully you won't see more than one, but if you do see more, look for a database with a Joomla-sounding name such as jo_151. Click on that database.
Step 4: You'll now see a new list on the left-hand side with names such as jos_banner and jos_bannerclient. Scroll all the way to the bottom and click on jos_users.
Step 5: Look at the top of the page and click "Browse":

Step 6: You should a line right at the top looking like this. The number is probably going to be 62. Click on the pencil icon:


Step 7: Write down the username.
Step 8: Enter this into the password field: 21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3
Step 9: Click "Go" to save your changes.
Step 10: You should now be able to login to your site using the username and the password "admin".
Step 11: Go to Site >> User Manager and change your password to something that is harder to guess.