403 Forbidden Error - What is It and Step by Step Instructions How to Fix It
The ‘403 Forbidden’ error or ‘HTTP error 403 – Forbidden’ means that access to the file or folder you are trying to open has been denied, either on purpose or due to a misconfiguration. Here are the most effective ways to troubleshoot the issue.
Reset file permissions for your WordPress site
Usually resetting files permissions solves 403 errors. You can easily reset the file permissions of your WordPress site in your Site Tools > WordPress > Install & Manage.
Once there, click on the Actions menu next to the installation you wish to fix and choose Reset Permissions. Follow the steps in the dialog and we’ll automatically reset your permissions to the default ones for WordPress.
Deny rules in your .htaccess file
If the issue persists, go to Site Tools > Site > File Manager > root directory (public_html) and navigate to the .htaccess file.
The deny rules are preventing a specific IP or range of IPs from accessing your website. They can be either manually inserted or generated by plugins or extensions. You can easily delete the deny rule(s) in your .htaccess file from your File Manager. Look for lines that look like this:
deny from all
deny from [IP]Delete all lines that start with ‘deny from’ and save the file.
If you don’t feel comfortable editing your .htaccess file, you can easily restore a previous version of it from the Backups tool. Open Backups, select a working version of your website, click on the Actions menu and select Restore Files. From there, select the .htaccess and complete the restore. You can check our detailed Backups guide for more information.
Conflicting plugins causing errors
If the problem still occurs, try to disable your plugins from your WordPress dashboard. To disable your plugins through the dashboard, log into your WordPress admin dashboard > Plugins > Deactivate. Reload your website after disabling each plugin to check which one is causing the error.
If you don’t have access to your WordPress dashboard, follow the instructions in this article in order to disable the plugins directly from the database.