Better WP removal

I’m suffering from the same problem.

I tried to delete the plugin, and re-installed it afterward, but it keeps giving problems.
Even the settings have not changed after uninstall and reinstall.

This is what I’ve done:
Delete the plugin directory
Reset the chmod of .htaccess and wp-config.php to 644
Cleaned up the .htaccess file (take out all between #Better wp & #end better wp

But it is not cleaned at all…

Meaning when I re-install the plugin again, to completely reconfigure it, all my old settings are still there.

How can I completely get rid of this plugin?
(which is a plugin I love btw; it just gives me problems on one site)

The problem is that when you remove the plug-in it drops a couple of carrage returns onto the end of your config-wp.php file. PHP does not like this. There may not be ANY characters after the program terminator ( ?> ).

Open your config-wp.php and remove any extra invisible characters from the end of the file, and you should be good-to-go.

I have also noticed that the config-wp.php is set to read-only after plug-in removal. Need to change to fix your config-wp.php file.

Hope this helps.

BTW: I like the plug-in. I removed it to facilitate moving my sites to a new server.

SoftBlue,

I did what you suggested.
There was one soft carriage return at the end of my wp-config.php file.

I removed that, changed the chmod settings of the .htaccess & wp-config.php file back to 644
Removed the extra code Better WP-security puts in the .htaccess file
Re-installed the plugin again
But nothing.

My site does not load, neither in the backend, nor frontend.

When I use FTP I see the directory.
I rename the directory adding XX to it.
Still no loading of the side front nor back end.

This is very strange. Such a good plugin misbehaving on only one of many of my sites!

I deleted my .htaccess and recreated with permalinks/save.

I agree this is a good plugin. It is trying to do some complicated things. I expect not all possible things can be tested.

I’m testing the hide login and site change features. They have caused me trouble in the past, but seem to be working OK now.

In one of my tests it add further troubles with deactivate and re-activate. I ended up with lockout in admin pages. It seems like going with a scorched-earth full delete – full regression test without the plugin – then clean install is the way to go. That is what I’m doing with my site-by-site move to a new server.

What I’d like to know (from the developer?) is how to completely remove the plugin.
The thing is, even when uninstalling/deleting the plugin with FTP, the settings remain when I reinstall it.

Thought I’d pipe in because I’m having problems with this plugin and wanted it deleted as well. I think it has to do with the plugin creating 2 new tables in your database so even if you do fixes to .htaccess and config files and or restore site from backup…….important- unless you also restore your database from a database backup
prior to activating plugin those tables remain and screw things up. Those tables if you look at your database will be wp_bwps_lockouts and wp_bwps_log. (if you changed prefix it would have yours before the bwps).

So, I tried to do above and my problem is my last database backup must have been after plugin was activated so my database still has those tables…… I’m planning on manually dropping them from my database.

NOTE: There is also a folder the plugin created in wp-content folder that I’ll be deleting as well.

I’ll try to post back if successful.

@slowjoe5

Thanks for your addition. Yes, please keep us updated on this issue.

If the developer reads any of this (which I really hope!), there should be a proper uninstall option, rather than just a deactivate and delete.

Again, it’s working perfect on most of my site and I still give it 5 stars. Just on one site it started acting strange.
The only thing I wanted to do is uninstall and reinstall.

looking forward to your progress!

I was able to manually drop the tables from the database (using myphpadmin) and deleted any folder or files from wp_content folder that the plugin created. I also deleted the plugin itself not just deactivate. So that cleaned out all reference to the better wp security and my site is back to normal.

NOTE: This isn’t necessarily the plugins fault as it did give instructions to do proper backups before install so you can easily go back to everything the way it was before you mess around with settings. I don’t follow directions well and I’m still learning the whole wordpress system by trial and error.

Lesson learned – I’m going to save my security plugin for last plugin to activate as it seems other plugins (especially cache plugins) want write access to files that the security plugin locks down with permissions.

Not that better wp security is faulty but because of all the precautions and settings I’d have to adjust for I’m going to try Bulletproof Security plugin…. I’ve heard from my hosting techs that they find it easy to configure.

Hope this helps others.

Thanks SlowJoe5

After all your uninstalling and deleting, were you able to reinstall the plugin again from scratch? Without any previous settings?

I know it also conflicts with the plugin “WP-Remote”

I’m sure I could but as I stated previously I’m defecting from Better WP Security to using Bulletproof Security plugin instead.

Also want to add again… the security plugins (probably doesn’t matter which one) should always be the last plugin you activate and configure as it will be locking down files and directories etc. from being writable which a lot of other plugins need to do for their configurations…. after all plugins are working and getting along with each other….. then I’m going to activate and set my security plugin settings. The earlier installed and activated plugins should function OK as their settings/configurations have already been set.

My only fears about this is my ability in the future to change any settings in any of my plugins where that plugin may need to re-write to a file I have locked down. Also if I want to add a new plugin in future that may need write access to a particular file I have locked down? I’m just going to have to proceed as stated above and hope I don’t need to change or add new plugins in the future and if I do, I know it will take al lot of research before trying and I’ll always have my backups for both wordpress and the database up-to-date before initiating any new plugins or updates.

I too need help! I installed the plugin 2 wks ago & all was working well. I then decided to activate the automatic lock out feature & it crashed my website to the point where I couldn’t even log into my the backend. I was able to get into my FTP File Manager & rename the plugin, thus shutting it down so that I could get back in & delete it. I’ve deleted the plugin, but my entire .htaccess file is still dedicated to Better WP Security. This is still causing issues with my site and since I’m not a strong coder, I’m hesitant to delete these lines. Can anyone offer me any suggestions? The bottom of my .htaccess is simply 10 lines of code dedicated to WordPress.

did you guys not make a backup before installing the plugin? The author clearly states that it makes changes to a number of files. I would say depending on the nature of your site, you should be able to to just backup your site for your control panel.

Dinsparks,

I would do the following: download a copy of your .htaccess file to your local maching, just in case.
Mind you it will be a hidden file on most operating systems, so you need to make sure you make those hidden files visible.

Then delete everything including and beneath these lines:
# BEGIN Better WP Security
# END Better WP Security

Between all these lines are the added code from the plugin