Troubleshooting a 403 (unauthorized) error and getting back into Amazon Lightsail

Last updated: May 20, 2019

If you get a 403 error when trying to access the Lightsail console, don’t panic. Try these steps to troubleshoot the problem:

• If your AWS account or your (IAM) user was recently created, wait a few minutes, and then refresh your browser.

• If it’s been a while since you last signed in, refresh your browser. If you're prompted to sign in again, be sure to use an IAM user that has access to Lightsail.

• If your IAM user doesn’t have access to Lightsail, then contact the AWS account root user or an IAM user with administrator access to request access to Lightsail. To learn more, see Manage access to Amazon Lightsail for an IAM user.

• If you continue to get the 403 error after trying the above steps, contact AWS Customer Support. In some rare cases for AWS accounts created before 2011, support will have to manually subscribe your account to Lightsail.