How to disable plugins in Wordpress

If you are unable to login to wordpress and are seeing an error similar to:

*Warning*: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/example/public_html/wp-content/plugins/zopim-live-chat/accountconfig.php:20) in */home/example/public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php* on line *1121*

You may have a plugin that is preventing wordpress from functioning correctly.

PHPMyAdmin Method

It possible to disable a wordpress plugin by logging into phpmyadmin, selecting your wordpress table, which is usually your username followed by _wp1.

For example, if your username was bob, your wordpress name might be bob_wp1


Before going any further you should back up your database before you try to edit it.




Once you've found your table, run the following query against your table. 

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = 'a:0:{}' WHERE option_name = 'active_plugins';

This will disable all active plugins, but will not delete or modify them.

Command Line Method

You can also run a query through the command line.

Log in through SSH and execute the following commands. 

root@example# mysql <database name>
Mysql> UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = 'a:0:{}' WHERE option_name = 'active_plugins';