## **🧩 Overview**

The Search Atlas WordPress plugin includes a **white-label (WL) protection** feature that lets you password-protect your plugin settings from end clients. If you set a white-label password without configuring a recovery email, or if your server's mail function is misconfigured, the password reset email may fail silently — leaving you locked out with no error message.

This article explains why this happens, how to regain access, and what information to provide if you need our team to investigate your installation.

## **⚠️ Why the Password Reset Email Fails**

The password reset function inside the WordPress plugin requires a valid **sender email address** to dispatch the recovery message. When no sender email is configured — or when your WordPress hosting environment has a restricted or broken `wp_mail()` setup — the system silently drops the email without showing you an error.

Common causes include:

- No recovery email was entered when the white-label password was first created
- Your WordPress hosting provider blocks outgoing mail from the server
- A third-party SMTP plugin is misconfigured or conflicting
- The sender **from\_email** value is empty or invalid in your WordPress settings

**Note:** Our engineering team is actively working on replacing the current password reset flow with a single-use recovery link to eliminate this issue in a future release.

## **🛠️ How to Recover Access to White-Label Settings**

Follow these steps in order to regain access as quickly as possible.

1. **Check your recovery email inbox and spam folder.** If a recovery email was configured, the reset message may have landed in spam or been delayed by your mail server.
2. **Verify your WordPress mail setup.** Install a plugin such as *WP Mail SMTP* to confirm that your site can send email at all. Send a test email from **Settings → WP Mail SMTP → Tools → Email Test**.
3. **Check your SMTP credentials.** If you use a third-party SMTP service (Gmail, SendGrid, Mailgun, etc.), confirm the credentials are correct and the connection is active.
4. **Ensure a valid From address is set.** Go to **Settings → General** in WordPress and confirm the *Administration Email Address* field contains a real, deliverable address. This value is used as the sender when no custom from\_email is defined.
5. **Retry the password reset** from the white-label login screen once your mail configuration is confirmed working.

## **🔑 If You Are Still Locked Out**

If the steps above do not restore access, our support team can investigate your installation directly. To do this, you will need to grant temporary access to your WordPress site.

Please prepare the following before contacting support:

- A **temporary WordPress Administrator account** created specifically for our team — do not share your own credentials
- The **WordPress admin URL** (e.g., *https://yoursite.com/wp-admin*)
- The **username and password** for the temporary account
- A brief description of when the issue started and any error messages you have seen

**How to create a temporary admin account:**

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to **Users → Add New**.
3. Enter a username (e.g., *searchatlas-support*) and a secure temporary password.
4. Set the role to **Administrator**.
5. Click **Add New User** to save.

Once our team has resolved the issue, delete this temporary account immediately from **Users → All Users**.

## **✅ How to Prevent This Issue in the Future**

- Always enter a valid **recovery email address** before saving a white-label password in the plugin settings.
- Test your WordPress mail function regularly using a dedicated SMTP plugin.
- Keep the Search Atlas WordPress plugin updated so you receive the upcoming single-use recovery link improvement as soon as it is released.

## **💬 Need More Help?**

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.