WordPress Dashboard Options Not Showing After Migration

How to fix WordPress dashboard options not showing when signed in as admin?

I can sign in using my admin account but WordPress shows my website and the admin bar, but I’m unable to access the dashboard or any other admin options.

When this happened to me the other day, it was after a website migration.

After migrating to a new host (manually—using files/db upload), I created a new admin user manually using phpMyAdmin, but I was unable to fully access the dashboard. What I got looked as if I logged in but the only option I could actually use was Log Out.

After a bit of searching (I didn’t actually find a search result that explained this), I realized that the tables in my new database had been renamed on the new host. (that is, these tables had a prefix, so instead of wp_table it was wp_abcxyz_table).

The issue ended up being that I was giving my user permissions using wp_capabilities, when I should have known to use wp_abcxyz_capabilities. (Note, replace wp_abcxyz with your database prefix).

I don’t know if there is a better way to do this and it’s probably not a very common issue, but I’m happy to share these little tidbits of my experience as I go.

If you can sign into your WordPress admin account but not access your dashboard, especially after a migration (or another reason why your db tables might be renamed?), doublecheck that you have the right permissions in the right places!