Over the weekend, I implemented SSL through Cloudflare and configured the WP Security plugin to have SSL on a front end and admin dashboard.

wp-security-ssl-settings

It was all ok until I decided to disable the WP Security plugin for the time being to troubleshoot my Thrive Leads issue. My WordPress admin dashboard was locked out and giving a “Redirect lookup” error.

The front end was giving problems too but I was able to make my website operational by removing HTTP to https redirection. But this didn’t work for the admin dashboard.

If you are having a similar situation then not to worry, here is how you can escape this issue.

As usual, don’t forget to take a backup of the existing configuration, which you will be modifying shortly.

  • Login to your server (if you are on shared hosting then it would be your cPanel)
  • Go to htdocs or root location of your WordPress website
  • Edit wp-config.php
  • You will notice the following two lines where SSL is defined as true
// iThemes Security Config Details: 2 
define( 'FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', true ); // Force SSL for Dashboard - Security > Settings > Secure Socket Layers (SSL) > SSL for Dashboard 
define( 'FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true ); // Force SSL for Dashboard - Security > Settings > Secure Socket Layers (SSL) > SSL for Dashboard 
// END iThemes Security - Do not modify or remove this line
  • Change that true to false so it should be like below.
// iThemes Security Config Details: 2 
define( 'FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', false ); // Force SSL for Dashboard - Security > Settings > Secure Socket Layers (SSL) > SSL for Dashboard 
define( 'FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', false ); // Force SSL for Dashboard - Security > Settings > Secure Socket Layers (SSL) > SSL for Dashboard 
// END iThemes Security - Do not modify or remove this line

That’s all.

Try to access your admin dashboard and it should be ok.