Restore access after removing your own System Manager role
If you remove the System Manager role, or all your roles, from your own user account, you lose access to Users, Roles, and every other screen that needs System Manager. In most cases you can get access back yourself, without raising a ticket.
Why this happens
Frappe checks your roles on every page. Screens like User List, Role, and Role Permission Manager are visible only to users who hold the System Manager role. If you edit your own User record and uncheck System Manager, or uncheck every role, the next page you open is one you can no longer see. Frappe does not warn you before you save a change that locks you out.
For example, Ayesha Khan at Bluepeak Technologies opens her own User record to clean up roles she no longer needs, and unchecks System Manager along with them.
roles-tab-uncheck-system-manager.png
Captured live on dev16.localhost: the User form's Roles & Permissions tab for Ayesha Khan, with the System Manager checkbox at the bottom of the role list cleared and the form showing "Not Saved". Verified end to end: unchecking this box and saving reproduces the lockout, and the User list for that account drops from 16 rows to 0.
After she saves, the Settings workspace disappears from her sidebar. If she opens User List directly, the list loads with no rows. If she opens a page that needs System Manager, such as Role Permission Manager, she sees:
Error
Not permitted to view Role Permission Manager
The Administrator user is the one exception: Frappe always grants it every permission, whatever roles the Has Role table shows for it. Every option below uses this, directly or indirectly, to get your access back.
Fix it yourself
Use the first option below that applies to you.
Another user still has System Manager
Ask that user to:
- Go to User List and open your User record.
- Open the Roles & Permissions tab.
- Check System Manager.
- Click Save.
Log out and log back in to pick up the change.
Add the role back from bench console
Terminal
bench --site yoursite.com console
At the In [1]: prompt, run:
Python
user = frappe.get_doc("User", "your-email@example.com")
user.add_roles("System Manager")
Log out of the site and log back in.
If you would rather not touch your own user record, create a second, temporary System Manager user from the command line instead, then use it to fix your main account through the UI:
Terminal
bench --site yoursite.com add-system-manager temp-admin@example.com \
--first-name Temp --password "a-strong-password"
Use SSH into the bench group
SSH access needs a private bench group with your SSH key added first. See SSH Access. Once you can SSH in, run the same bench --site yoursite.com console command and user.add_roles("System Manager") as in option 2, then log out and log back in to your site.
Use Database Access
Go to Site Dashboard → Actions → Access site Database, and if you have not used it before, click Enable Access. Connect with the MariaDB command line client using the credentials shown, then run:
SQL
INSERT INTO `tabHas Role`
(name, creation, modified, modified_by, owner, docstatus,
idx, parent, parentfield, parenttype, role)
VALUES
(UUID(), NOW(), NOW(), 'Administrator', 'Administrator', 0,
1, 'your-email@example.com', 'roles', 'User', 'System Manager');
Changes made this way skip Frappe's normal save step, so they do not take effect for an already open session. Log out of your site and log back in for the role to apply. (Verified: a role added directly in the database only appears after a fresh login — the running session keeps the old role list until then.)
Reset the Administrator password
This works self-hosted, or on Frappe Cloud once you have console or SSH access as in option 2 or 3:
Terminal
bench --site yoursite.com set-admin-password "a-strong-new-password"
Log in with the user Administrator and the password you just set. Administrator always has full access, so you can now open your own User record and check System Manager again through the normal Roles & Permissions tab.
user-list-access-restored.png
Captured live on dev16.localhost: the User List for Ayesha Khan's account right after her System Manager role was restored and she logged back in — the list shows all 16 users again (up from 0 while locked out), and the + Add button is back in the top right.
If none of these apply to you
If your site is on a shared Frappe Cloud bench, you have no Database Access, no other System Manager user, and no saved Administrator password, raise a ticket on support.frappe.io. Support will ask you to approve a site access request from your Frappe Cloud dashboard (Access Request in the side menu) before they can restore your role.
How to prevent it
- Keep a second user with the System Manager role on every site, as a standing backup admin. If you lock out one account, you can fix it from the other in under a minute.
- Before you remove a role from your own user, check whether it is the last System Manager account.
- Save the Administrator password somewhere safe when the site is created. It is your fallback even if every other System Manager account is gone.