Can’t deactivate 2FA (or log in when it’s enabled)

  • Resolved longwhitedigital

    (@longwhitedigital)


    1 year, 11 months ago

    When trying to deactivate 2FA for myself or other users I get the error:

    ‘An error was encountered while trying to deactivate two-factor authentication. Please try again. “

    Have tried several times.

    I am trying to do this as WordFence is currently preventing users with 2FA from logging in (error message “ERROR: An error was encountered while trying to authenticate. Please try again”) and moving WF out of the plugins directory allows us to log in again.

    How do I work around this issue?

    Thanks,

    Tim, Long White Digital

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

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi @longwhitedigital, thanks for getting in touch,

    To get back into your site, please follow these instructions:

    • Please use FTP/SFTP — or any file manager your web host provides via their administration panel.
    • Look inside the /wp-content/plugins/ directory and rename the wordfence directory to wordfence.bak. This will deactivate Wordfence and allow you to login without the 2FA code.
    • Once you have logged in to your WordPress admin you can name the folder back to wordfence again.

    It sounds from the sudden change of behavior that an automatic update by another plugin or theme may have affected the JavaScript on that page, causing a conflict. If our scripts don’t load properly due to an error earlier in the loading process, this is the most common cause of behavior such as this. The best way to test for this is to run Wordfence has your only enabled plugin and enable 2FA. If you’re able to log in, then reenable your plugins one-by-one until it breaks again to find the cause.

    I have seen another customer report this within the last 24 hours, so there could be a common theme/plugin between your sites which we may be able to discover from the above test.

    This may not apply, but bear in mind that our Login Security features are designed to work with the default WordPress and WooCommerce login/registration screens so may be incompatible with custom forms or login pages generated by plugins other than WooCommerce.

    Thanks,
    Peter.

    Thread Starter longwhitedigital

    (@longwhitedigital)

    Thanks very much for this advice – it did the trick. In case it helps you troubleshoot other cases, in my case it transpired to be the WP All Export plugin. (which fortunately can be deactivated for most of the time)

    Thanks again

    Tim

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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