Plugin Updates seem to mess up Wordfence?

  • Resolved Crimsonjade

    (@crimsonjade)


    4 years, 6 months ago

    Hi there, I’ve since removed the Wordfence plugin from two of my sites, but I’ve found that Wordfence ends up getting messed up after I update other plugins. Last week it was Contact 7. I updated Contact form 7 or whatever it’s called on one of my sites, and Wordfence immediately messed up, rendering my dashboard unreachable until I renamed the Wordfence plugin folder, which disabled it. I ended up removing all my other plugins (as in deleting completely) from the folder to see if Wordfence would work normally, but that didn’t work, either. So I removed Wordfence entirely. Now it’s happened on another site, where I had updated another plugin, and Wordfence gave me the same 500 error as with the first site, also rendering me unable to access the dashboard, until I renamed the Wordfence plugin folder. I’m not sure what’s going on as it only gives me the 500 error and little else. I dunno if I should just redo the site install completely for Wordfence to work again or what. When the 500 error occurs, my entire site is unreachable. Is anyone else having a similar issue?

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

  • Hey @crimsonjade,

    Can you please share any relevant errors in your PHP error logs? This might give us a better idea of what’s happening. If you’re not sure where these are your host can provide them to you.

    Please let me know.

    Thanks,

    Gerroald

    Thread Starter Crimsonjade

    (@crimsonjade)

    Hi @wfgerald

    Here’s the really weird part – neither of these occurrences have generated an error log/showed up in the existing error log. I had a completely different issue with another subsite and that error log displayed the issue clearly, but with the Wordfence one, there wasn’t any error logged. So I’m completely in the dark on how to troubleshoot this. And yet, every time I try to reactivate/reinstall and then activate Wordfence, I get the 500 error on both these sites.

    Any ideas?

    Thread Starter Crimsonjade

    (@crimsonjade)

    Oh, and as I just finished typing that last one, it happened to another subsite of mine. This time, it’s
    “There has been a critical error on your website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions. Learn more about debugging in WordPress.” Except the dashboard is inaccessible, and I never get emails about it. Just re-named the WordPress plugin folder, and voila! Dashboard accessible again. Yes, I just updated my other plugins for this subsite as well. Once again, no error logged. I’m going nuts.

    Hey @crimsonjade,

    It is odd that there aren’t any errors. My first thought was a PHP memory error, which should show errors in the log. Do you have a site that you can disable all other plugins except one that needs an update and give it a try?

    Also, can you try completely resetting Wordfence to see if it helps?

    https://www.wordfence.com/help/advanced/remove-or-reset/#remove-or-reset

    Please let me know if you can run the test.

    Thanks,

    Gerroald

    I am having the same issue on 3 websites. You cannot reset WordFence because you cannot activate it – it will knock the site down and give you a http500 error. I tried reinstalling it and that did not work

    I was having a similar 500 error as well when I updated some plugins and wasn’t able to get into my site. My hosting company deactivated my plugins to allow me to go in. Now I get an error saying “fatal error” when trying to reactivate Wordfence and it won’t activate.

    @crimsonjade @rotcorp @feelingxgood11
    Did you try to erase all “wp_wf…” tables in your database? (All of them are created by Wordfence plugin). And then try to install & activate the plugin again.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by bazantik.

    Hey All,

    You can manually remove Wordfence without having to access the WordPress admin. Can you please give this a try and let me know if it helps?

    https://www.wordfence.com/help/advanced/remove-or-reset/#remove-or-reset

    If simply resetting it doesn’t help please remove it once more, deactivate all other plugins and reinstall. If the reinstall goes well then reactivate the plugins one at a time. If it happens again note the plugin it happened on and please share it here.

    Please let me know how it goes.

    Thanks,

    Gerroald

    Thank you Gerroald. I manually deleted all wordfence files and reactivated it. It didn’t give me the same fatal error message as before which didn’t allow me to even activate the plugin. I haven’t gone through to make sure it fully works. Will keep you posted.

    Hey @feelingxgood11,

    Thanks for the update. Please do let me know how it goes.

    Thanks,

    Gerroald

    I am having the same problem

    @wfgerald Yes that fixed it. Manually deleted files and “wp_wf…” tables in database; reinstalled and activated and working fine.

    Thread Starter Crimsonjade

    (@crimsonjade)

    @wfgerald @bazantik

    Hmm, just did that (deleting “wp_wf…” from my database), and now Wordfence can’t register my site. Keeps giving me the following:

    “Wordfence could not register with the Wordfence scanning servers when it activated. You can try to fix this by deactivating Wordfence and then activating it again, so Wordfence will retry registering for you. If you keep seeing this error, it usually means your WordPress server can’t connect to our scanning servers, or your wfConfig database table cannot be created to save the key. You can try asking your host to allow your server to connect to noc1.wordfence.com or check the wfConfig database table and database privileges.”

    EDIT: Seems to have worked for that one site after deactivating and reactivating. Just waiting for Wordfence Central to kick in… Fingers crossed for the other three.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Crimsonjade.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Crimsonjade.
    Thread Starter Crimsonjade

    (@crimsonjade)

    Hi all, thanks so much, that did the trick. All four sites are working fine with the WF plugin now.

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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