Can banning user agents delete site?

  • Resolved annataylor

    (@annataylor)


    6 years, 7 months ago

    The question in the title is going to make you go “oh god what a poor newbie” but hear me out. I’ve been getting attacks for a few weeks now and banning a few IP address per day (through the e-mails telling me people have been locked out). I finally decided to ban some of the usernames they were using instead of just the IPs. The four usernames I put on the user agents list were former members of my site, long inactive. Saved the settings and all was fine. When I tried to then go to my website’s main page, I got a 403 Forbidden/500 Internal Server Error. The website is not there. The login page is not there. I have no idea what to do. Did the Blacklist Manager cause this or has something completely random gone wrong right at the same time?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Contributor mbrsolution

    (@mbrsolution)

    Hi,

    The four usernames I put on the user agents list were former members of my site, long inactive.

    The above can cause the error you are currently seeing when you visit your site. However don’t worry about this because it happens to many, many times. We are here to help you.

    Please carry out the following steps.

    1) use CPANEL file manager (or FTP) and temporarily rename this plugin’s folder.
    eg, rename from
    all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall
    to
    tmp-all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall

    2) Get your currently active .htaccess file and remove all code which is between and including the following tags:
    # BEGIN All In One WP Security
    # END All In One WP Security

    3) Log into your site using the standard login link – ie, wp-login.php. Then rename the folder back to all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall.

    4) Once logged in you can disable or re-configure the feature(s) which were giving you problems.

    5) And if you want to clear all the settings from the plugin and start from scratch, install the following reset addon. Then once the addon is installed, make sure AIOWPS plugin is deactivated and then run the reset addon in your site. Once the settings are reset in the plugin, enable AIOWPS and start from scratch.

    Let me know how you go.

    Kind regards

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by mbrsolution.
    Thread Starter annataylor

    (@annataylor)

    Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the owner of the site originally so don’t have any files or folders on my computer. Always just logged in through the web-based platform. I do have admin access.

    I did try to log in through the wp-login.php but it does not exist anymore either.

    Maybe it’s a hosting issue?

    Plugin Contributor mbrsolution

    (@mbrsolution)

    Hi, if you can’t carry out Step 1) from above then I suggest that you contact your host. Ask them if they can restore the site from a backup.

    Kind regards

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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