Falcon Engine crashing my site

so i just installed W3 Cache and activated that and immediately got the same issue. Something seems to be breaking as soon as any sort of page caching happens…

Hi Chief,

Let’s see if we can sort this out for you.

Check what’s in the htaccess file vs the copy you saved when you activated falcon caching. Look for extra characters at the beginning of the file or missing content at the bottom.

Also, can you let me know what hosting provider you use, if you are using lightspeed, etc.

Thanks!

tim

i’m with bluehost, but we’ll probably switch to websynthesis this weekend. pretty unhappy with their performance.

i wish i was good enough with .htaccess to know what i’m looking for. i can post the two here, if that helps, or i can email them to you

ok. i did notice that

# Use PHP5.4 Single php.ini as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54s .php
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

was moved to the bottom of the htaccess file. bluehost said that had to be first. i don’t know if that’s true as i always take what their support people say with a bit of a skeptical stance.

I’m not sure about the handler at the top, but we usually say that the Falcon caching code has to go on top.

mine looks like this:

#WFCACHECODE – Do not remove this line. Disable Web Caching in Wordfence to remove this data.
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css text/x-component application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript text/x-js text/html text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon application/json
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
AddOutputFilter DEFLATE js css htm html xml
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
AddType text/html .html_gzip
AddEncoding gzip .html_gzip
AddType text/xml .xml_gzip
AddEncoding gzip .xml_gzip
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.html_gzip$ no-gzip
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.xml_gzip$ no-gzip
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Vary “Accept-Encoding, Cookie”
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
#Prevents garbled chars in cached files if there is no default charset.
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

#Cache rules:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule .* – [E=WRDFNC_HTTPS:_https]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteRule .* – [E=WRDFNC_ENC:_gzip]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !=POST
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(?:\d+=\d+)?$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (?:\/|\.html)$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !(comment_author|wp\-postpass|wf_logout|wordpress_logged_in|wptouch_switch_toggle|wpmp_switcher) [NC]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)(.*)$
RewriteCond “%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/wfcache/%{HTTP_HOST}_%1/%2~%3~%4~%5~%6_wfcache%{ENV:WRDFNC_HTTPS}.html%{ENV:WRDFNC_ENC}” -f
RewriteRule \/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)(.*)$ “/wp-content/wfcache/%{HTTP_HOST}_$1/$2~$3~$4~$5~$6_wfcache%{ENV:WRDFNC_HTTPS}.html%{ENV:WRDFNC_ENC}” [L]
</IfModule>
#Do not remove this line. Disable Web caching in Wordfence to remove this data – WFCACHECODE

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
# uploaded files
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file= [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ – [L]
RewriteRule ^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) [L]
RewriteRule ^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(.*\.php)$ [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

So all the Falcon cache stuff goes first. You might try editing by hand and taking the handler piece first then WF cache code and then WordPress’ code. See if that works.

Incidentally, does this happen when you use basic caching?

tim

i did not try it with basic caching as it was taking my site down during the day. i’ll try that tonight at home. i’d imagine it would if w3 is also crashing it.

the first is the Wordfence one.

second is the normal.

#WFIPBLOCKS – Do not remove this line. Disable Web Caching in Wordfence to remove this data.
Order Deny,Allow
#Do not remove this line. Disable Web Caching in Wordfence to remove this data – WFIPBLOCKS
#WFCACHECODE – Do not remove this line. Disable Web Caching in Wordfence to remove this data.
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css text/x-component application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript text/x-js text/html text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon application/json
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
AddOutputFilter DEFLATE js css htm html xml
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
AddType text/html .html_gzip
AddEncoding gzip .html_gzip
AddType text/xml .xml_gzip
AddEncoding gzip .xml_gzip
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.html_gzip$ no-gzip
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.xml_gzip$ no-gzip
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Vary “Accept-Encoding, Cookie”
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
#Prevents garbled chars in cached files if there is no default charset.
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

#Cache rules:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule .* – [E=WRDFNC_HTTPS:_https]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteRule .* – [E=WRDFNC_ENC:_gzip]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !=POST
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(?:\d+=\d+)?$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (?:\/|\.html)$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !(comment_author|wp\-postpass|wf_logout|wordpress_logged_in|wptouch_switch_toggle|wpmp_switcher) [NC]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)(.*)$
RewriteCond “%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/wfcache/%{HTTP_HOST}_%1/%2~%3~%4~%5~%6_wfcache%{ENV:WRDFNC_HTTPS}.html%{ENV:WRDFNC_ENC}” -f
RewriteRule \/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)\/*([^\/]*)(.*)$ “/wp-content/wfcache/%{HTTP_HOST}_$1/$2~$3~$4~$5~$6_wfcache%{ENV:WRDFNC_HTTPS}.html%{ENV:WRDFNC_ENC}” [L]
</IfModule>
#Do not remove this line. Disable Web caching in Wordfence to remove this data – WFCACHECODE
# BEGIN Far Future Expiration Plugin
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive on
<FilesMatch “\.(gif|jpeg|jpg|png|ico|js|css|swf)$”>
ExpiresDefault “access plus 17520 hours”
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
# END Far Future Expiration Plugin

# Use PHP5.4 Single php.ini as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54s .php
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

# Use PHP5.4 as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54 .php

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://cmslaser.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://cmslaser.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.cmslaser.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.cmslaser.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ https://www.cmslaser.com [R,NC]

****************************************************************

# BEGIN Far Future Expiration Plugin
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive on
<FilesMatch “\.(gif|jpeg|jpg|png|ico|js|css|swf)$”>
ExpiresDefault “access plus 17520 hours”
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
# END Far Future Expiration Plugin

# Use PHP5.4 Single php.ini as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54s .php
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

# Use PHP5.4 as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54 .php

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://cmslaser.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://cmslaser.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.cmslaser.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.cmslaser.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ https://www.cmslaser.com [R,NC]

This is getting in the weeds of htaccess stuff ??

I’m going to escalate this one and see if the dev guys can look and see what looks out of place, if anything.

tim

thanks. i’ll test the basic cache setting tonight, but i don’t have high hopes based on the w3 crash.

this is a conundrum, though. i’d love to be able to use the cache function…

The basic cache doesn’t use any htaccess stuff so you might find it more compatible, at least until we fix this.

Just so I’m clear on everything, you don’t have any other caching plugins on the site, right? Have you ever used them?

tim

Hi Chief,

Tim asked me to come here and try to help. Looking at what you’ve posted I don’t see anything that’s clearly a problem.

I tried to click the link you posted in your initial post in this thread to see what your site looked like when it crashed, but that link doesn’t work anymore.

If you’re seeing a 500 Internal Server Error, then please ask your hosting provider to check the error logs for your web server or check them yourself. Whenever you have a problem in your .htaccess that is causing a 500 error it writes the error to that logfile and it will be quite clear what the problem is.

If you’re not seeing a 500 error then post what you’re seeing as a screenshot and I’ll take another look.

Regards,

Mark.

hey mark,

that image should still be available at that link. i just tried it and it worked fine.

https://www.cmslaser.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-09-23-08_41_53-www.cmslaser.com_.jpg

i have the basic cache running now. it’s been fine with no crashes so that’s good.

it’s not a 500 error. we had a plugin write bad code to the htaccess file and take it down. that was easily corrected. this, as the image will show you, is something i’ve never seen before.

our site is https://www.cmslaser.com

ok….so maybe basic cache just took a while to do what Falcon Engine did quickly.

the same wingding crap just happened again and as soon as i deactivated wordfence the site came back up.

Weird. Because I can’t see how caching with any plugin would cause this. Have you opened a ticket with Bluehost yet? And are you running lightspeed? There is a very interesting discussion on this here:

https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/59309/page-output-in-strange-characters

tim

not running lightspeed. i have gone through all sorts of things with bluehost, but as soon as they discovered that it stops and starts when i activate or deactivate wordfence and w3, they pretty much dismissed me.

that pic at the top is exactly what i’m experiencing. i’ll have to read that more thoroughly when i get back from lunch. a brief scan does seem to indicated that caching plugins could cause this due to too much gzipping going on…