My Prestashop back office shows an Access Denied error. The only change was, I recently upgraded my store. Is this a problem?

That was a recent support ticket received at our Outsourced Technical Support department where we resolve support queries for web hosts.

Prestashop owners often experience this error after store upgrades, after new users are added, etc.

Solving such website errors is a common task we do every day. Today, we’ll discuss the top 2 causes of this error and how our Support Team fix them.

Prestashop ‘Access Denied’ error – What this means?

Access Denied error means the user doesn’t have sufficient permission to view the requested webpage or resource.

Access Denied error in Prestashop domain

And, Prestashop owners see this error because of inadequate permissions, incorrect admin credentials, etc.

Prestashop ‘Access Denied’ error – Causes and Fixes

Let’s now discuss the main reasons for this error in detail and how our Support Engineers fix them.

1) Wrong User credentials

This is one of the common reasons for this error. Prestashop owners often enter incorrect admin user credentials, or a non-existent admin user to access back office.

How we fix?

Firstly, our Support Engineers verify the Prestashop admin credentials. If it doesn’t work, we edit/reset the password from command line.

In Prestashop, the ps_employee table stores the prestashop admin user details in an encrypted form. So, we first find the correct database from settings.inc.php file. After that, we reset the admin user password.

For instance, we use the below command to reset the admin user password.

UPDATE ps_employee SET passwd = MD5('<cookie_key><password_you_want_to_setup>') WHERE ps_employee.id_employee = 1

Similarly, if we find that the user is missing in the database, we add this user to the database from command line.

[Need a Prestashop expert to look into you issue? Click here!! We are available round the clock.]

2) Improper permissions of admin user

This usually happens when store owners fail to assign proper permissions to new admin user.

In other words, sometimes store owners need to create a user with limited privileges. For example, consider a user that needs permissions to process orders. But, they shouldn’t access any other data in the admin panel.

In such cases, store owners create an administrator profile with the necessary permissions. Further, they create a new user with this administrator profile.

So, if the user hasn’t been assigned proper permissions, they will receive Access Denied error while accessing the module.

How we fix?

Our Support Engineers login to the admin panel and check the administrator profile permissions. If there are conflicts in the permissions, we’ll correct this immediately.

We normally correct the administrator profile permissions from Administrators > Permissions in Prestashop admin panel. In addition to that, we assign proper administrator profile to the user from Administrators > Employees.

On the other hand, if the Prestashop back office is not available, we change the permissions from command line.

Prestashop administrator profile details are stored in the ‘ps_access’ database. So, we use the command line to access this table and add proper authorization roles to the corresponding administrator profile.

For instance, we use the below command to add proper permissions

INSERT INTO ps_access (id_profile, id_authorization_role) SELECT 1, id_authorization_role FROM ps_authorization_role;

Additionally, we ensure that the administrator role data is properly added in the ps_authorization_role table as well.

If the ps_access table is completely messed up, we need to restore this table from the backup.

[And, do you need help to resolve this error in your website? One of our Prestashop experts can help you here.]

Conclusion

In short, Access Denied error means that the user is not allowed to view the page. Prestashop ‘Access Denied’ error can happen due to wrong user credentials, improper permissions of the admin profile. Today, we’ve discussed these reasons in detail and how our Support Engineers fix them.