After the install is complete a “403 Forbidden” or “403 Access Denied” message shows for either the site or admin.A 403 error means the web server has restricted access to a specific path. This directive is controlled by the web server and Duplicator has no controlor ability to fix this issue directly from the plugin. The fixes for this issue are below:

Solution 1Contact Host
If your not technical or used to working with web server config files then contact your host or server admin and they can usually fix this issuefor you in a few minutes. Just give them the URL where you are seeing the message.

Solution 2Edit Config
Edit the web server config file and add the following to the httpd.conf or httpd-ssl.conf if running SSL.
# The Directory path below should match your server the following is a SAMPLE
<Directory /var/www/html/example.com/public_html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>Solution 3Additional Resources
For a full detailed troublshooting overview on this issue please visit this URL:
WPBegginer: How to Fix the 403 Forbidden Error in WordPress.

Also See:
WPBegginer: How to Fix the 403 Forbidden Error in WordPress.
How to fix a blank/white installer or 403/404/405/500 issues?

Solution 1Redirect Issues
This can be caused by a redirect on your server. Here are several places a redirect can be triggered from:

• Mis-configured config file such as: wp-config.php, .htaccess or themes/functions.php
• A redirect plugin that maybe installed. Disabling the plugin at install time see Option 3 below.
• Inside an html file via a meta refresh tag or a JavaScript redirect
• Check your cpanels for redirects or contact your host
• Follow these steps for fixing perma links
• Check the installer-log.txt file for warnings or errors.
• Try to remove your .htaccess file and start with a fresh one

Solution 2Path Issues
To prevent the index.php appearing in the address bar or attached to each request the following can be added/changed in your httpd.conf file.

To allow permalinks on Apache you need to instruct Apache to allow individual sites to update the .htaccess file, by addingthe following options to the Directory section in your hosts Apache httpd.conf configuration file:

1. Add the following to the httpd.conf
   # The Directory path below should match your server the following is a SAMPLE
<Directory /var/www/html/example.com/public_html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
2. Restart Apache
3. If you’re on a budget host with no access to the httpd.conf file you will need to send this FAQ item to your host

Solution 3Plugin/Theme Issues:
Sometimes plugins or even themes can cause redirect issues. Below is an option to help isolate the issue with plugins and themes. If the issue still persists aftertrying the options below consider investigating your themes functions.php to make sure there is not custom code causing a redirect. Also consider looking at some of theoptions in this FAQ.

Solution 4Browser Cache
Google Chrome and other browsers will cache your 301 redirects. To get around this, and to keep the tabs open, you’ll just need to clear your browser cache.

Chrome Menu Chrome Menu > Settings > Search for “history” > See option “Clear browsing data”. Whatever else you select, make sure “Cached images and files” is a checked option. Then click Clear browsing data and you should be able to retest again. If you’ve just followed the redirect, you only need to delete data from the past hour. Alternatively, test and develop in incognito mode. There the cache is flushed after the browser is closed.

Also See:
How can I fix my site when the home page shows but no sub-pages work?
Why are some of my plugins/images/links/styles not updating?
WordPress.org Forums: 404 Errors on all pages but home page?

Option 1Add Admin User
Typically the quickest way to login to the WordPress admin is to add a new admin user from the installer. This can be done with the following settings:See Installer (Advanced mode) > Step 3 > Options > create a new Admin account and use that to login.

Option 2Validate/Reset Login
If you lost the admin password or logging in is not working consider these options.

• Try to login a few times and try having the password emailed to you
• Pay attention to the “User Mode” used on Step 1 > Options > General.
• See Installer (Advanced mode) > Step 3 > Options > disable all plugins in-case you have a plugin conflict
• You may have to reset the password by following these instructions
• If all other options fail you can use the emergency password reset script

Option 3Redirect Issues
If you are trying to login to the WordPress admin dashboard, but keep getting redirected back to the login without any notice of invalid username/password.Then the URL link might be messed up. Try changing the URL address in your browser to either of the following addresses and then try to login:

• https://yoursiteurl.com/wp-admin
• https://yoursiteurl.com/wp-login.php

Option 4User Mode
If you are performing a single site install then you will need to pay attention to the “User Mode” setting in the installer wizard step 1 advanced options (default is overwrite).This mode will control which users are overwritten, kept or merged. For example if you wanted to keep the users from both the source and target sites then you would follow these steps:

1. Switch to “Advanced Mode” in the upper right corner of the installer on step 1
2. Under “Options” > “General” for the option “Users Mode:” select the “Merge” option
3. Choosing this option will result in details listed below for Merge

User Mode Overview:

Overwrite: Overwrites users is the classic mode, users from the source site will be installed and those from the target site will be discarded.

Keep: Keeps all users of the target site by discarding users of the source site.All content on the source site will be assigned to the content author selected user.

Merge: Merges users from the target site with users from the source site.The target site users will be unchanged and the source site users will be added by remapping ids and logins if duplicated.

The plugin migrates all defined constants from your wp-config.php, due to some complexity on how the defined constants can be initialized in PHP, it could happen in rare and exceptionalcases that the replication of your previous wp-config.php silently fails or with an error. Some examples are:

• A defined constant is initialized with a flow check
• A dynamic variables concatenated to your plan value
• Backslashes or other custom settings

In such circumstances it could happen that you might see the following in your logs:PHP ERROR: Unexpected end of file
PHP WARNING: Use of undefined constant

Solution 1Inspect wp-config
We would advise to check your wp-config.php for missing macros. Check to fix any macros for broken values in case of complex initialization with flow checks,dynamic variables, backslashes, etc…

Solution 2Reset wp-config
Recreate the wp-config.php manually from scratch or grab a fresh one from wordpress.org