Remove .htpasswd Password Protection .(Nginx)

I added an htpasswd.txt to sites-avaiable/default to protect my site:

server {
        auth_basic "closed site";
        auth_basic_user_file /tmp/.htpasswd.txt;

        listen 81 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

        root /var/www/path/to/root
        index index.html index.htm;

        server_name ipaddress;

Now that i’m trying to remove it, I can’t get rid of a .htpasswd protection I set up previously. I’ve tried everything from creating .htaccess in the root of my site with satisfy any like this post suggests and this, to deleting the reference to htpasswd.txt from my sites-available/default file, to reinstalling nginx. I can’t find where this htpasswd file is being referenced somewhere from because nothing seems to get rid of it. Lastly I tried deleted the htpasswd.txt file and that just broke the login.

I want the whole site to be available with no htpasswd.

I also did a grep search to find out if the htpasswd file is being called for and it’s no where to be found. What can I do?

Answer

My suggestion to anyone with a problem such as this involving unknowns that cannot be dealt with after much effort: Go to your Server (in my case digital ocean) and create a new (take a snapshot of your server to apply to your new IP) IP / droplet for your site. Uninstall your server engine (Nginx or Apache) and reinstall on the new server / IP. It’s a little annoying but at least you wont be stuck like I was for days. Thats how I fixed it. Also, don’t despair, you’ll figure it out.