Plugin is blocking loopback requests in WordPress

Can you let me know what problem you are having and how to replicate the same issue on my end?

Thanks for reporting the issue and I’ve seen it now. Trying to fix it asap. Unfortunately there is not much documentation about what could be causing this. Trying my best to fix it as early as possible. Thanks for reporting it.

Found the issue. Pushing an updated soon.

Pushed v1.5.7 which has fixed this bug. Also Tested with the Health Check plugin & edited files directly in the editor to ensure there is no such issues. Please update to v1.5.7 immediately.

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There is a minor bug in v1.5.7. Please update to v1.5.8

Hi,

Well glad that you fixed it, wow this was a quick response.

WP Server Stats is a great plug in, I would not want to dismiss it because of this issue.
The thing is, many other plugins are causing the loopback issue. Is there a specific script or command that causes it?

Well, I don’t know about other plugins but I can tell you what caused it in WP Server Stats hopefully it will help others as well.

You see, from Day 1 WP Core Team decided not to use SESSION variables inside WP for some reason. But for years developers can still user SESSION variables inside their codes with some occasional PHP Notice. But it seems from v4.9 WP core has made sure that session cannot be used inside WP. So, if you are using something like session_start() PHP function, it will throw that loopback issue.

The only solution to this is rewrite your code in such a way that to do not use SESSION in any way whatsoever.

In WP Server Stats there was a couple of places where session has been used, so I basically have to rewrite codebase ensuring no feature loss while not using session in any way whatsoever.

No sure if the same problem remains for other plugins or not but this was my findings.

P.S.: If you liked this plugin, please consider providing a review and if possible donating some amount for future development.

Thanks.

I get it now, but I don’t understand what’s wrong with php sessions. As far as I know, they don’t pose a security or other risk. Thank you for the detailed answer.

I am impressed that you found the solution so quickly. You should inform the WordPress developers in this thread as they are trying to replicate the issue for days now.

I will definitely consider a donation.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Dpsachou.

Thank you. Looking forward to your plugin review and donation.

Hello again,

I just made a test with the old version of the plugin, and the problem solved with a session_write_close() command at the end of wp-server-stats.php file

Screenshot

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Dpsachou.

Yes I know. But it’s better to avoid session entirely as WP core doesn’t use it and not really supports it as well. So, now the plugin don’t use session. Also there is couple of issues with using session as not all plugin properly opens and close session. So better entirely avoiding it.

Oh well ok then. Glad this was fixed ??