Automatic Scan? (Free Version)

Hi,

That is odd. The free version should only scan your site once every 24 hours. When did this start happening?

Thanks,
Brian

I have no idea! I can see one scan this morning at 7 am and one at 6.45 pm… Next scan is for tomorrow at 11.

Can you click on the link on the options page to show your scheduled jobs? Screenshot that page and attach a link here.

Thanks
tim

None since I don’t have the premium version. I can’t even select this option.

Ok. On the Wordfence Options page, near the bottom (a few lines above the “Exporting and Importing Wordfence Settings” heading), can you try the link that says “Click to view your systems scheduled jobs in a new window”?

This link can show Wordfence and WordPress’s scheduled jobs even with the free version — it should show some lines that looks like this:
Fri, 23 Oct 2015 08:07:33 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan

That will narrow down the issue, but won’t solve it yet — thanks for your patience!

-Matt R

Thanks Matt!

I think I am actually seeing a pattern here… Every time I first log in and then go to the Scan page, it automatically starts a new scan. Even though I am not clicking on ‘Start a Wordfence Scan’. So I have to manually click on ‘Kill the current scan’. Looks like there is something automatic behind it. Only happens when I haven’t been logged in for a day. Same happened last night when I first logged in at 6.30 pm and went to the scan page. I tried to go to the scan page at 7 and nothing happened.

Regarding the log:

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 23:59:12 +0000 : redirection_log_delete
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:10:15 +0000 : jetpack_clean_nonces
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:16:22 +0000 : wp_cache_gc
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:27:53 +0000 : wordfence_hourly_cron
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:48:00 +0000 : wp_maybe_auto_update
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 02:59:23 +0000 : backwpup_check_cleanup
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 04:07:31 +0000 : blc_cron_check_news
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 04:08:04 +0000 : jetpack_v2_heartbeat
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 04:36:35 +0000 : akismet_scheduled_delete
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:22:05 +0000 : wp_version_check
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:22:05 +0000 : wp_update_plugins
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:22:05 +0000 : wp_update_themes
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:22:27 +0000 : wp_scheduled_delete
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 19:01:35 +0000 : wp_scheduled_auto_draft_delete
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 23:07:59 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Thu, 22 Oct 2015 23:27:53 +0000 : wordfence_daily_cron
Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:46:42 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Sat, 24 Oct 2015 23:30:25 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Sun, 25 Oct 2015 09:00:00 +0000 : backwpup_cron
Sun, 25 Oct 2015 23:11:30 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Mon, 26 Oct 2015 22:00:00 +0000 : wordfence_email_activity_report
Mon, 26 Oct 2015 23:13:36 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Tue, 27 Oct 2015 23:07:06 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Wed, 28 Oct 2015 23:50:28 +0000 : wordfence_start_scheduled_scan
Thu, 29 Oct 2015 08:07:31 +0000 : blc_cron_database_maintenance
Sun, 01 Nov 2015 12:22:27 +0000 : publish_future_post
Wed, 11 Nov 2015 12:37:24 +0000 : publish_future_post

I have the same problem,
I’m having scheduled scans and I want to do them manually.

Is this a bug ?

@puda: Thanks for the details. It looks like the scheduling part is working correctly, since there are no duplicates or scheduled jobs in the past, so that is good.

Are you using a page caching plugin, such as W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, or another one? Or even “varnish” on your host, or CloudFlare? If most of your site’s pages are cached, WordPress’s scheduler won’t have a chance to run scheduled jobs, but it catches up when a non-cached page is visited (including any wp-admin pages). That could cause a scan to start running when you first visit the scan page after not logging in for a day, and it could cause two scans to run in the same day, depending on when they were originally scheduled.

If that might be the cause, you could temporarily disable caching for a few days, and see if it still occurs — of course, it would make the site slower, which isn’t ideal. Another option is to log in 2 or 3 times a day for a while — you might still see the scan start when you view the Scan page, but if that only happens the first time you view the page in a day, it would confirm what is happening.

@ELAN42.com: If you don’t want the scheduled scans to run, you can turn off “Enable automatic scheduled scans” on the Wordfence Options page. If it is already off, you can turn on “Disable config caching” near the bottom of the Options page (some hosts have trouble saving options without this.) If you still have trouble after that, can you start a new post? Thanks!

-Matt R

Thank you Matt! Yup I am using WP Super Cache and yes I usually log in 2/3 times a day and the automatic scan only occurs with first login. So I guess the problem has been solved! I don’t mind anyway it’s fine. I thought that was a new option but maybe I never realized that because of my cache plugin, Wordfence has been doing a scan every time I first logged in.

Ok, great!

Note that the cache can also cause scheduled posts not to be posted at the right times, and some automatic backups may not run on time either, because they both use the same part of WordPress (wp-cron.php) for scheduling.

One solution (for all of these) is to exclude a single page from the cache — maybe an “about” page or something, that search engines check often, but your regular readers don’t constantly visit. That single page will be slower, but any hit on that page should trigger any overdue scheduled jobs to run.

-Matt R

Great idea! I will do that tonight.

As always thanks for your prompt response!

Hey sorry Matt,

So weird, I did not logged in to my admin today but scan started by itself and told me one plugin needed to be updated. That’s how I found out the scan started as scheduled.

Oh well! I guess sometimes it’s working fine and sometimes it’s not!!

I’m having problems saving (exporting) and importing options,
performance setup – caching (radio button) is not saved,
and sometimes a few options are randomly lost.

Should I open a new thread about that ?

@puda: Yes, if a visitor or crawler reaches a page that wasn’t cached by the caching plugin, the scan can run at that time — it’s just when every visitor reaches a page that was already cached, the scan and other scheduled tasks be skipped. (The reason is that the cache sends the saved page to the visitor before WordPress has a chance to do anything, which is part of the reason a cache is faster.)

@ELAN42.com: I see your other post and will answer there shortly. Thanks!

-Matt R