403 error accessing Admin Panel but Wordfence sends email confirming Admin Login

  • Resolved wplefthanded

    (@wplefthanded)


    3 years, 10 months ago

    Linux Red Hat / WordPress 5.5.4 / Wordfence 7.5.2

    I’ve being fighting the 403 error when trying to access the Admin panel:
    403 Forbidden
    Access to this resource on the server is denied!

    Sometimes it disappears but I haven’t been able to find a reason. What I’ve done:
    – Clear browsing data (Cookies & other site data, cache)
    – Delete/recreate .htaccess
    – Folder/files permissions to 755/644 (Filezilla)
    – Deactivate plugins renaming Plugins folder and activating 1 by 1
    – Delete wp-content/advanced-cache.php

    Even when 403 error occurs, mail is received indicating access to the Admin panel was successful:
    This email was sent from your website by the Wordfence plugin at Sunday 25th of April 2021 at 03:42:17 PM
    The Wordfence administrative URL for this site is: https://the-site.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=Wordfence
    A user with username “xxx” who has administrator access signed in to your WordPress site.

    Clicking on the link takes to the Wordfence page and from there you can go to any Admin panel menu. If you close the Admin panel and try to login the error occurs again

    Thanks in advance

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Hello @wplefthanded and thanks for reaching out to us!

    Are you seeing this 403 response in the Wordfence > Tools > Live Traffic page as well? If so, could you click on it to expand it, then screenshot it for me to review? Just make sure to block out any sensitive content as this is a public forum.

    Can you send a diagnostic report to wftest @ wordfence . com? You can find the link to do so at the top of the Wordfence Tools > Diagnostics page. Then click on “Send Report by Email”. Please add your forum username where indicated and respond here after you have sent it.

    Thanks again!

    Thread Starter wplefthanded

    (@wplefthanded)

    Hi:
    As you can see in the screenshot, I set an advanced filter to match 403 HTTP responses and ony 2 are listed, none of them related to the problem
    I’m going to send the diagnostic report

    Thanks for your help!

    Live Traffic page

    Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Sorry for the late reply @wplefthanded as I had been out last week.

    I see the blocks include our WAF 260 rule which is for AdNing Unauthenticated file upload and deletion.

    Access to this resource on the server is denied! isn’t an error Wordfence would cause. That rule shouldn’t be related to login requests in any way because nothing is uploading files while you’re logging in.

    Just as a test, are you still seeing this 403 login error when you have Wordfence disabled? I mean specifically the login error.

    Thanks again!

    Thread Starter wplefthanded

    (@wplefthanded)

    Hi @wfadam:
    As mysteriously as it appeared, the error disappeared after my last post until yesterday when it happened again just once. I reloaded the page and I could access the admin
    The usual tasks in the last week have been updating plugins

    If the error occurs again I’ll test disabling the WF plugin

    Thanks for your help!

    Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Thanks for letting me know!

    I believe it to be something outside of Wordfence, but do let me know what you find.

    Thanks again!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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