Help with admin password recovery from my vBulletin Forum

[Pilgrim23]

I have a vBulletin Forum that is on 123 reg VPS
The person who originally set it up for me set himself up as the admin.
I have been abroad a while with the military and only just come back home.
I am wanting to be able to get onto my forum as the admin so I can start changing and updating things
I can not locate this person and his email is no longer working...
I am only registered with the forum as a member etc.
How do i find the admin password?
I have taken some screen shots in the hope that some expert on here can help me

In anticipation.
Shaun

[megabink]

If you don't have access to your vB files then the only thing you can do is to contact vB support/sales.

[Joe D.]

Make sure you have a database backup.

If you can find the tool called phpmyadmin that will allow you to access the database.

Open phpmyadmin and look for a database that has tables named things like:
access
ad
adcriteria
adminhelp
administrator
adminlog
adminmessage
,,,

There will be hundreds of tables but it should start with something like that. That is the vBulletin database.

Find the user table in the list and browse it.

userid 1 is usually the main admin account, check the value listed under email, if it isn't yours it's likely the guy who set it up's account. Click on the email address in phpmyadmin and you will be able to edit the address. Enter your email address for the account- ideally an email address not already in use on the forum.

Take note of the username for userid 1.

Now go to the SQL option at the top of phpmyadmin and paste in this query:

UPDATE user AS user
set password = MD5(concat(MD5('pass1234'), user.salt))
WHERE userid = 1

And hit "Go" to run it.

If it completes successfully now you should log in as whatever the username is for userid 1 and use the password: pass1234

Once logged in you should change your password to a more secure value.

Note: I know you are using an old version of VB 5.0. The above query will not work on newer versions of VB5 so other people should not try it.

[Lynne]

The screen shots you are showing are not of vbulletin, but are of your Plesk cpanel. We cannot help you with access to that - you would need to contact the host for help with that.

[Pilgrim23]

I have managed to do it..... yahooooooooooo
I am now the admin.....

Thanks a great deal Joe.
when anyone requests a forgotten password etc it send out the new password from the young lads email address?
I just need to work out now how i change the email response to come from my email address .......

[Joe D.]

In the Admin CP -> Settings -> Options -> Site Name / URL / Contact Details there is a setting called "Webmaster's Address" which you should update to your own.

Also in Settings -> Options -> Email Options check and see if they setup an SMTP Email Account. If so you will want to change it to your own SMTP account because you won't know who has access to the account being used.