Internal Server Error after scan

You need to go to your web hosting control panel (NOT the wordpress admin panel), then go to PHP setting and temporarily enable the ‘display errors’ option.
Then, refresh your website home page and you will see in your screen what it causes the error. Copy and paste the results here, so you can easily get help from someone here ??

Hi @aisyahznl

If you renamed the Wordfence plugin directory name then Wordfence cannot be the cause of your site being down as Wordfence will be inactive.

Do not follow the advice given by @sunborn because the display_errors PHP directive should never be enabled on a production website connected to the internet. You can see this in the PHP documentation here:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/errorfunc.configuration.php#ini.display-errors

You will need to ask your hosting provider for assistance as they can look at the PHP error logs (if PHP error logging is enabled), the web server error logs and other error logs to see why the site went down.

this is very true, however i meant temporary, just for 1 minute so she can see the code… is not a big harm, after all, as you can see, it is an empty site… ??

this is how i fix a similar bug on one of my websites too just a week ago:

i suddenly had a blank home page (and wp-admin page too!) with an HTTP ERROR 500… so, i ask the hosting team what is going one and they told me to delete the worldfence folder and then install it again!

…and i said, why on earth i should do such thing?

so, i activate the display errors just for 30 seconds, and i see the message:

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Failed opening required '/home/u662469818/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/vendor/wordfence/wf-waf/src/lib/parser/lexer.php' (include_path='.:/opt/alt/php80/usr/share/pear:/opt/alt/php80/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php') in /home/u662469818/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/vendor/wordfence/wf-waf/src/init.php:30 Stack trace: #0 /home/u662469818/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/waf/bootstrap.php(31): require_once() #1 /home/u662469818/public_html/wordfence-waf.php(6): include_once('/home/u66246981...') #2 {main} thrown in /home/u662469818/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/vendor/wordfence/wf-waf/src/init.php on line 30

so, by simple logic, i check the folder and i saw that lexer.php was missing!

then, i simply download manually the worldfence.zip, extract it on my PC, and then just upload the lexer.php in the right directory

Problem solved, site was instantly back, no need to wait for supposed tech advice, which was totally destructive! (they couldn’t even tell me for sure what will happened with the 2 factor authentication, if i delete the folder!)

Hi @sunborn

Thank for the additional information as that explains the situation fully.

Your absolute file path should never be disclosed publicly so you can edit your reply so that it looks something like this /home/xxxxx/public_html/.

It is better to use PHP error logging that records all error logs in a file rather than enabling the displaying of PHP errors. Your hosting provider can help you setup PHP error logging if it isn’t enabled, or you can setup WordPress debugging as outlined below:

Debugging in WordPress

The missing file may possibly have been due to a failed update of the plugin. You can disable the option to update Wordfence automatically. This option can be found in the General Wordfence Options section on the All Options page.

If you have the email alert option Alert me with scan results of this severity level or greater set to at least Medium then you will receive an alert when a new version of Wordfence is available to install from the WordPress Plugins page.

If a manual update fails too then you can delete the plugin manually and try and reinstall it again. This allows you to deal with the situation immediately rather than the auto update failing and you not being aware of the issue until a later point in time.

If you delete the Wordfence plugin directory then it won’t affect any of your settings such as two factor authentication as that is stored in the database.

@wfphil thank you ??

that is very true about “/home/xxxxx/public_html/”!, it happened because because i am a multitask person and sometimes i can forget basic things, in order to do everything fast :-p …however i can not find an option to edit the post! Is it somewhere on my main WordPress profile? I can see the “Edit” link, only in on my latest reply, not everywhere!

also, thanks a lot for confirmation that deleting the Wordfence plugin directory it won’t affect any of my settings such as two factor authentication!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Sunborn.

Hi @sunborn

I recall now that posts can only be edited for 60 minutes. You could join WordPress Slack and ask a moderator for assistance:

Slack