How to manually reset a password in vBulletin

If you are the admin of your vBulletin forum and have access to the database, you can change the password for any user (including yourself) by issuing the following sql query:

UPDATE `user`
SET `password` = MD5(CONCAT(MD5('newpassword'), `user`.`salt`))
WHERE `userid` = 1

Ensure you have the correct userid!

Posted by Scott Stanger
Posted in useful stuff
Aug, 24, 2012
4 Comments.

4 Responses so far.

Berk Gilliam says:

January 30, 2013 at 8:35 am

You can change your password, If you have direct SQL access to server. It will work as described above as soon as you change it to alterable or deletable. After changing the password you can again switch to unalterable or undeletable.
Kosher Travel Info says:

July 2, 2013 at 12:29 pm

Hi,

I have an older Vbulletin forum (still running 3.7) and needed to change the admin password. The forum is no longer part of the main site, however, we have to monitor new post and comments still coming in to make sure they are suitable to the sites intended visitors which is Orthodox Jewish and Kosher site visitors… This type of audience will not be happy to find links to sites containing indecent images, etc.

I could not figure out how to change the password. It did not work using the “Forgot Password” link from the front end.

So I just want to say thank you for High Corral for posting this tip on how to change the Admin password by running this Query directly from the SQL database using phpMyAdmin.
Scott Stanger says:

July 15, 2013 at 8:02 pm

I am glad I was able to help!
Alex says:

April 16, 2014 at 5:20 am

Yes, it works with little change.
it should be `salt` not `user`.`salt` as written in the query. otherwise it shows error