Co-Admin up his own bum
 

I am the site owner of my forum but when it started to get really busy I made someone whom I thought I could trust co admin. Now, while I was in hospital having an operation (with no internet connection) he has de-admined my account and contacted the hosts, forged my signature and transfered everything over to him. I am in discussion with the hosts to get all the passwords changed for the access (ftp etc) which should be done today.

Question is...how can I make myself admin again with just server access? He's refusing to do it via the ACP but I need to do it so I can knock him off his perch, as I pay for the hosting and the vbulletin licence and am in the process of getting everything changed back with the hosts but I don't want to have to start from scratch as I have 100K+ posts and a few 1000 threads but need to become admin again.

--------------- Added [DATE]1304509575[/DATE] at [TIME]1304509575[/TIME] ---------------

Am I going to have to go into the database?

Someone asked a similar question in this thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=260852

Well, not really the same problem, but it has instructions for using tools.php, and you can use that to make yourself admin again.

Hope that works for you.

Thanks. Should do the job. I've given him until tea time UK time to either upgrade my account or I shall do that.

Well, you're very tolerant...I think I'd be doing whatever I could to block any access he has until I had control again. :)

It's a darts site and he stumped up ?3K of his own money for a tournament we organised so I feel a little guilty just sacking him off. I think I'll just make him a moderator.

He decided to take control of your website while you were hospitalized, forged your signature to take control of your server (that's called theft...), and won't give you access back...and YOU feel guilty?

If it was me I'd have already banned any IP he's ever used and reported the forgery to the police ;)

You are WAAAAAAAY tolerant! This guy steals your site deliberately and you feel the need to make him a moderator?

Well, as he said, the guy dopes have a monetary interest in the site, so he you would be better off to pay him off and get rid of him as you have no idea how far he will go the next time.

The guy did something illegal and tried to steal something that wasn't his. How much he 'donated' to the site does not matter in the least in a situation like this.

Yes, it does matter as once the money was accepted, then he has rights to the forum. Granted what he did is despicable, but still he could cause far worse major headaches in the long run. And remember, you are only hearing one side of the story.

you don't get rights of ownership when you donate money

It all depends on the deal they struck when he donated the money. As with anything like this, there are always 2 sides to the story. Until you hear both sides, then all you can do is cast an opinion on everything.

Which is what I'm doing :D

Sadly, I'm pretty sure we aren't going to hear both sides of this story, would be nice though.

I really don't want to know anymore, to be honest. ;)

Tried that fix ^^^ and it didn't work. I'm still a normal user. He won't give me his log in details so I can't make myself admin.

Help please.

I thought when you edited the config file in VB you set yourself (ie member 1) as an undeletable user, thought this meant you couldn't be demoted as an admin by any other user? I could be wrong

Sorted. There was a reset admin status option in the tools page.

Thanks.

--------------- Added [DATE]1304680356[/DATE] at [TIME]1304680356[/TIME] ---------------

Now to decide what to do with the guy who pissed me off. Hmmmmmm.

Nuke him. Regardless of what he may have contributed to the site to try to steal it is totally unacceptable.

Go to PHPMyAdmin, or whatever MySQL manager you use, select the Database, click on the "user" table, click "View Data", find your account there, where it says "Usergroup ID", write "6" there. After that you should be in the root administrator usergroup!

P.S. Good luck in restoring your site!

OK. Sorted. I'm admin again.

I was going to change him to registered user and I get this:


Advice?

You need to fire up an FTP client like Filezilla.

Go to Public_html>Includes>config.php

Look for any references to his account ie his user ID and remove them, it should all be fairly obvious what you need to do as the config file is commented throughout.

There will be a line specifically about undeletable/protected users, put your user ID in and take his out. Also after you've done all that either remove his FTP access or if he's just using yours then change your password and don't tell him.

Can I just stress that you make sure he doesn't have FTP access to the site because otherwise you could end up in the same situation again.

nvm, responded after he edited the post

OK, I've done that and it has a number rather than his username. What do I do?

--------------- Added [DATE]1304774426[/DATE] at [TIME]1304774426[/TIME] ---------------

Grr. I changed the user number and I get the same error message.

What about the Super Administrator line, is he removed from that?

Something else you must do is

a) Put your user ID in here and remove his
****** UNDELETABLE / UNALTERABLE USERS ******

b) Put your user ID in here and remove his
****** SUPER ADMINISTRATORS ******

Once you've done that log into your admincp and remove him from the Admin Group.

I'm going mad. It won't let me delete him he is user 24 and I am user 1.


WTF is going on?

Where are you trying to delete him from? You need to do it in the config.php file.

That's what I've done. I'm user # 1 and he's 24 so I changed all the 24s on the config file to 1 and then go into the ACP and try to change his account but it still says he's protected.

Did you get my PM.

Install the client version if you dont already have it.

http://filezilla-project.org/

omg this dude needs perma banning whatever he has given you, Good luck with deleting him!

No offence but are you sure that you uploading the newly edited version to the correct remote directory?

That's what I was thinking tbh either that or he wasn't accepting the prompt to overwrite the existing file when he had finished editing.

I'm sorry but that's hilarious.

You plan on making the guy who stole your website a moderator? We don't forgive our staff for leaking. :o

talk to some of the coders here I am sure they can help you fix this problem even help you and some might do it for free after this guy did what he did

Go into the database and edit yourself to usergroup id 6 and then make yourself a super admin in the config.php

This happened a year ago so I'd imagine that it's been resolved by now. :)