latest update of wordfence crashing the site

Hey @ianro,

The PHP Warning shouldn’t prevent any code execution.

Can you please share a screenshot of the cPanel > Resource usage your host mentioned? This might give us a better idea of what’s happening.

Also, can you please share any relevant errors in the PHP error logs?

Thanks,

Gerroald

Hi @wfgerald

Thanks for the reply

Below are the links to the screenshots and logs requested

resource

server error logs

php error logs

wordfence was disabled at 12-43 june 2nd (about the middle of the graphs) – where the faults stopped occurring on the resources CPU usage graph

Thanks again
Ian

Hi
I just had the same issue since yesterday evening.
I use the last version of wordpress and wordfence

My site crash down from time to time so my hosting told me to disable Word fence because there is an issue with the DB.

Since 2 hours, we disabled Wordfence, there are no more problems…

Thanks for investigating this…

Hey @ianro,

Can you please ask your host to increase your MySQLi database read_timeout to see if it helps?

Please let me know how it goes.

Thanks,

Gerroald

Hi Gerroald

Unfortunately, this is the reply I received from my web hosting support:

“Unfortunately, increasing this value is not possible within our shared hosting environments. That said, I would also not see this as improving performance, as your database activity is limited by the total computing resources available to your account, and since you had exhausted this increasing wouldn’t make a positive impact.”

Regards

Ian

Hey @ianro,

Thanks for the update.

Okay, if you wouldn’t mind, can you please try completely resetting Wordfence and let me know if the issue crops back up?

https://www.wordfence.com/help/advanced/remove-or-reset/#remove-or-reset

Please let me know how it goes.

Thanks,

Gerroald

Hi Gerroald

Thanks for such a prompt reply.

I will try that. However I still think this is somehow related to the error message from a week ago when updating a set of plugins. That message was as follows:

“Since WordPress 5.2 there is a built-in feature that detects when a plugin or theme causes a fatal error on your site, and notifies you with this automated email.

In this case, WordPress caught an error with one of your plugins, Wordfence Security.

First, visit your website (https://www.perceptiondynamics.info/) and check for any visible issues. Next, visit the page where the error was caught (https://www.perceptiondynamics.info/wp-admin/update.php?action=update-selected&plugins=broken-link-checker%2Fbroken-link-checker.php%2Clitespeed-cache%2Flitespeed-cache.php%2Cstring-locator%2Fstring-locator.php%2Cupdraftplus%2Fupdraftplus.php%2Cw3-total-cache%2Fw3-total-cache.php%2Cwp-file-manager%2Ffile_folder_manager.php%2Cwp-staging%2Fwp-staging.php%2Cwordpress-seo%2Fwp-seo.php&_wpnonce=3b1252721a) and check for any visible issues.”

There seem to be others on the forum who are having similar problems. Is it worth checking if they have also had this error message?

However, I will try resetting wordfence as you suggest, and see what happens

Thanks

Ian

Hey @ianro,

There are others with similar issues. We discussed it in a meeting today, and will again tomorrow. Rest assured we’re tracking it. However, in my previous experience, the full reset has resolved the issues. I understand it’s not ideal, but until we’re at the root of the issue it does seem to be helping.

Thanks,

Gerroald

I’ve had this issue with three sites now – white screen of death and “critical error” message. Because the white screen of death happens after I update plugins/themes (and not necessarily Wordfence) I haven’t believed my host support attributing the issue to Wordfence. Today I have to agree as the site only works when Wordfence is disabled.

Since I cannot access the WP admin panel unless Wordfence is disabled is there any other way to completely reset the plugin?

I’ve been using Wordfence for years and never had any problems before. It’s kept my sites from being hacked and I’m really nervous having disabled it on the most recent site to crash.

Hi asaracena

If we both have the problem after upgrading plugins, it seems to me that is could be one of those plugins that is making Wordfence crash. Thus if we try to see which plugins we have in common, we may be able to identify the plugin that is the problem.

You can probably work out from the hyperlink in my previous post, 5 plugins that I recently updated. eg broken link checker etc. Do you have any of the same plugins?

Thanks

Ian

Hi Ian – I don’t use any of the plugins you updated. Also the same thing happened when I updated themes and no plugins although this was on a multisite installation of WordPress.

Since it doesn’t happen on every site and can’t be duplicated at will I wonder if it’s a conflict between Wordfence running a scan (I didn’t think to check this before I updated) and the updating process itself? It’s only the most recent site that crashes again when I enable Wordfence – the other two have Wordfence enabled and both are working.

Alison

Hi Alison

I think you may be onto something with the Wordfence scan.

If you go back on this thread and look at the graphs of my resource usage, there are fairly regular spikes (light green and very difficult to see). I suspect that these could be the Wordfence scans.

However, the fact that only one of your sites is affected, suggest to me that it might be worth listing the differences between that site and the others (eg a different plugin or theme or setting). (Sorry, but I am only guessing here). However, if any of your differences match any of my plugins/settings it might identify a potential cause.

Thanks

Ian

Hi All,

Can you please share your system/server information? We’d like to compare PHP versions, hosting companies, MySQL version and etc.

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Gerroald

Hosting company is Kualo – kgix.com
Server Information
Item Detail
Hosting Package MultiSite
Server Name hector
cPanel Version 86.0 (build 21)
Apache Version 2.4.43
PHP Version 7.0.33
MySQL Version 10.2.31-MariaDB-log-cll-lve
Architecture x86_64
Operating System linux
Shared IP Address 91.197.231.144
Path to Sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail
Path to Perl /usr/bin/perl
Perl Version 5.16.3
Kernel Version 3.10.0-962.3.2.lve1.5.31.el7.x86_64

Thanks
Ian

Hey @ianro,

Thanks for sharing your system information. I’ll share this with the Team.

Thanks,

Gerroald