Depending on the error you receive, there can be several reasons why you cannot access your cPanel account:
"Connection refused/reset" error:
"Connection timed out" error:
"Name not resolved (DNS Address could not be found)":
"Your IP address has changed. Please log in again":
Corrupted cPanel interface/menu icons are not displayed:
First of all, keep in mind that you can log in your Hosting account directly
from the Namecheap Dashboard. This way, you don’t need to enter the cPanel login details as it's needed to enter to your Namecheap account with your Namecheap account credentials, navigate to the corresponding menu, and the system will redirect you inside your cPanel account.
If you try logging in through cPanel login page instead of Namecheap dashboard but receive an error about invalid login details, double-check the cPanel credentials that were sent to you in the
Your Hosting Account Details email. Also, make sure there are no extra spaces added while entering those details.
If you still cannot log in through the cPanel login page, try resetting the password by following
this article.
In case you cannot log in even with the new reset details, there might be a block on the server side. To resolve the issue, contact our
Support, and we will investigate it.
Domain is not pointed to the hosting server
If you cannot access your cPanel using domain-based URLs, like
http://example.com/cpanel or
http://cpanel.example.com,
check if the domain is pointed to the hosting server properly (either using NS records or by an A record).
The guidelines on how to change nameservers for shared plans for domains registered with Namecheap can be found
here.
If your domain is registered with a third-party registrar, contact their support and ask to change the nameservers for your domain to the ones specified in the email Your Hosting Account Details.
If your domain uses your Domain Registrar default nameservers and is pointed to the hosting server via an IP address, make sure this IP is correct. You can check it in the Your Hosting Account Details (Welcome Email) email or in cPanel >> the Server Information menu:
If you do not want to re-point the domain, you won't be able to use domain based URLs. In this case, you can access cPanel via Namecheap Dashboard or use alternative links:
- http://servername/cpanel
- http://servername:2083
- http://servername:2082
- http://cPanel_IP/cpanel
- http://cPanel_IP:2083
- http://cPanel_IP:2082
servername - the name of the server your hosting account is located on.
cPanel_IP - the IP address assigned to cPanel.
These details can be found either in the Welcome email in the Account Information section or in cPanel >> Server information.
DNS propagation
When you change nameservers for a domain name, these changes are not accepted instantly all over the world. It may take up to 24 hours (in rare cases, more) for local ISPs to update their DNS caches so that everyone can see your website.
Since the caching time varies between ISPs, it takes time for DNS changes to be totally in effect. Unfortunately, this process cannot be influenced or sped up because of its automated nature.
When switching between the Namecheap BasicDNS/PremiumDNS/Web-Hosting DNS nameservers, the DNS changes come into effect within one hour (24+ hours in rare cases).
The domain based URLs, like
http://example.com/cpanel or
http://cpanel.example.com will not work during the propagation. However, you can access cPanel
via Namecheap Dashboard or use alternative servername links like
http://servername/cpanel.
Port Block
If none of the following cPanel URLs open:
- http://example.com/cpanel
- http://example.com:2083
- http://example.com:2082
- http://servername/cpanel
- http://servername:2083
- http://servername:2082
- http://cPanel_IP/cpanel
- http://cPanel_IP:2083
- http://cPanel_IP:2082
most probably, the cPanel access ports are blocked on the side of your ISP, local computer, network, firewall or antivirus. In these cases, you can use
http://cpanel.example.com because it’s using HTTP port 80 which is available for everyone in the Internet.
Also, you can check if a specific port is blocked using the Telnet command. More details on how to use it can be found
here.
IP Block
If you tried all of the URLs and still receive the
Server connection timed out error, most likely, your external IP address was blocked by our firewall.
More details about different IP blocks can be found in
this article.
To resolve the issue, contact our
Support, and we will unlock your IP. You can check your external IP address
here.
Maintenance on the server
To check whether your server is up, visit the
Namecheap Status page.
In case the server is running normally and you have tried all of the above,
contact our support for more details.
Error "Your IP address has changed. Please log in again."
The error may be received if your ISP has provided you with a dynamic IP. To resolve the issue, you can try the following options:
- use a cPanel proxy link;
- use the http://cpanel.domain.tldlink;
- use a VPN connection;
- ask the current ISP to provide you with a static IP.
The
cPanel proxy links on Shared Hosting servers have the following look:
For Shared Hosting:
- https://cpanel-XXX.web-hosting.com
- https://webmail-XXX.web-hosting.com
For Reseller Hosting:
- https://cpanel-XXX.registrar-servers.com
- https://whm-XXX.registrar-servers.com
- https://webmail-XXX.registrar-servers.com
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On
VPS or
a Dedicated server, it’s possible to work with the option of cookie IP validation in WHM:
- Log in to WHM and navigate to Home >> Server Configuration >> the Tweak Settings menu:
- Find the Cookie IP validation field in the Security section.
Select the loose option:
- Click on Save at the bottom of the page.
You can find more details in the cPanel
documentation.
cPanel and CloudFlare
In some cases, enabling CloudFlare for the domain may cause cPanel to load incorrectly. Usually, there are no images in the main cPanel page, and you get logged out when you try accessing any menu:
You may also experience issues if the
http://cpanel.domain.com record is proxied through CloudFlare:
This issue is caused by the cPanel
Cookie IP Validation in-built option. It checks that the IP address the visitor originally came from matches the IP address of subsequent requests. When you use CloudFlare, the IP address of requests to your server can variably come from any IP address of CloudFlare servers, which can trigger the error.
In order to resolve the issue, try the following steps:
- Use the cPanel URL http://cpanel.domain.com when it’s not proxied through CloudFlare (not orange clouded). Also, make sure this subdomain record exists on the CloudFlare side and is pointed to your server IP address correctly.
- Use the proxy link: https://cpanel-XXX.web-hosting.com (for Shared Hosting) andhttps://cpanel-XXX.registrar-servers.com (for Reseller Hosting).
- Disable CloudFlare.
That's it!
