Scan almost always times out

It seems that my other sites hosted on Dreamhost are also having this problem, but we can start with just this one.

Hi @thirstyjon,

In case it is enabled can you try disabling the scan option “Scan images, binary, and other files as if they were executable” which is located on the Wordfence “Options” page?

This scan option is mainly intended for using on known infected sites. It requires a lot of resources and is not necessary to use for normal scans. The reason for this is that non-executables such as images can not execute themselves. If there is malware in an image, there will be malware in other files on your server as well and those will be detected even with this scan option off.

In case the problem persists, could you please:

• Go to the Wordfence Tools page
• Click the Diagnostics tab
• Scroll down to the Send Report by Email section
• Send the report to yann[at]wordfence[dot]com

Please make sure to include your WordPress forum username.

Didn’t work. I just sent you the diagnostic.

Hi @thirstyjon,

Thanks for sending the report.

The Log Files section shows that there are 2 “error_log” files containing data.

Are there any errors/warnings appearing at the time of the scan(s)?

Also can you confirm that you tried to run the scans with a Maximum execution time for each scan stage set to “15” or even “10”?

Howdy wyfann.

I don’t recall any specific errors other than the notice that it seemed to have not completed.

I adjusted the max execution time according to the help docs, but they never suggested LOWERING that time. They suggested INCREASING it.

I’ll try it right now with 10.

Scan appears to have failed.

This is all I see in the activity log:

[Nov 16 16:04:47] Ajax request received to start scan.
[Nov 16 16:04:47] Entering start scan routine
[Nov 16 16:04:47] Got value from wf config maxExecutionTime: 10
[Nov 16 16:04:47] getMaxExecutionTime() returning config value: 10
[Nov 16 16:05:50] Scan kill request received.

Then it appears that the scan is doing nothing.

I switched it back to 15 and the activity log ended with this:

[Nov 16 16:07:55] Scan process ended after forking.

You didn’t forget me, did you?

chongop1, what is with the spam?

Hi @thirstyjon,

Sorry about the delayed response.

The errors/warnings in the “error_log” files wouldn’t specifically mentioned the scan failing; rather they would be related to a PHP issue (timeout, memory limit,…) and the timestamp could link them to the scan.

Just for testing purposes, could you please temporarily disable the following options, one at a time and run a scan after disabling each option:

• Scan file contents for backdoors, trojans and suspicious code
• Scan file contents for malicious URLs

I’m sorry about this trial and error approach but at this stage I can’t see any other way to investigate the issue you’re experiencing.

Thanks wyfann. I am trying those two things now.

You did notice my previous post where I said this, right?:

I switched it back to 15 and the activity log ended with this:

[Nov 16 16:07:55] Scan process ended after forking.

Disabling scanning for backdoors, etc. ended here:

[Nov 19 14:16:48:1511119008.370639:4:info] Scan process ended after forking.

After a bit of time I also saw this error message in red:

Scan Failed

The current scan looks like it has failed. Its last status update was 5 mins ago. You may continue to wait in case it resumes or cancel and restart the scan. Some sites may need adjustments to run scans reliably. Click here for steps you can try.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by thirstyjon.

I think I solved this problem.

I did two major things. I am not sure which of the two fixed this problem, but here is what they are.

1) I talked to Dreamhost support and ended up moving the 3 sites that I have hosted on one account to three different ftp/php users within that account instead of all being on one. They told me that this would allow me to use the maximum resources available to my shared hosting account, whereas all three on one user could only use half.

2) BEFORE I switched two of the sites to new “users” I completely deleted wordfence and all of it’s database tables, etc. I deleted the created .user.ini file. I completely obliterated wordfence. Then I did completely fresh installs of wordfence AFTER moving to the new users.

Now the scan is working without apparent problem on all three sites, including the one I started this thread for: worldwideawakening.org

I am going to run at least 1 scan a day for a few days.

If the scans keep working without problem I will come back and mark this thread resolved.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by thirstyjon. Reason: typo

Hi @thirstyjon,

Thanks for letting us know. I’m glad you managed to get the scan to complete successfully!

According to what you’re saying it seems the issue was caused by resources limitations; most likely a given user would have a certain amount of resources allocated and having the 3 sites run by only 1 user would not allow the scans to have enough resources to run.

Thanks again for sharing the solution you applied; it will benefit other users hosted on Dreamhost.

Well.

So much for that.

The scans are failing again.

I’m pretty sure they are being cut short by Dreamhost’s procwatch daemon.

https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/216540488-Why-did-procwatch-kill-processes-on-my-Shared-server-

Do you know of anyone who is successfully running Wordfence on a Dreamhost shared hosting site? (I’m not talking about their premium Dreampress hosting).