403 access forbidden when upgrading to 3.7

Question

I am trying to upgrade my site from 3.6.5 to 3.7.2, after uploading the upgrade package and inputting the administrator username and password, I get a "403 access forbidden" error. I think this must have something to do with some folders' permission not correctly set. But I've checked the logs and tmp folder, they are all writable, also I've checked the "folder permission", everything is writable here. So I am really stuck here.

P.S.: Live upgrade is not available to me, for some reason, every time I try live upgrade I get a 500 error. This is beyond the scope of this question.

Answer 1

Check if there is some protection system like mod_Security active on your hosting, it could be masking real error. ANd check php error logs if they are available, usually they can be found in cpanel, plesk or whaever your hsoter uses.

Answer 2

If you have installed "Admin Tools", first of all, try to disable it (it can be do it by accessing via FTP to the plugin and change the name, or by their configuration).

Other thing you can try is to change the name of any .htaccess that you would have in the website.

Also... you can try to download the upgrade package again and re-doing all from scratch.

Another thing you can try is to make a backup (with Akeeba Backup) and try it in another site (or in local), and if it works, you only have to replace the old website with the upgraded version of the same.

Answer 3

Can you try to clear your cookies and login again? This sounds like a token related issue specific to one of those Joomla upgrades.