Style broke on homepage on update to 3.15.0 and getting 403 errors in page build

I’ve just checked other sites and they are also experiencing the same ‘Server Error (403 Forbidden)’ message only when editing the homepage, but they are still on 3.14.1. The ones that didn’t work are on GoDaddy hosting, but some of them save just fine. The ones that work are essentially modified clones of each other but I’m not sure why they would work but others, including ones made more recently, wouldn’t.

Here is system info from the site that I linked. Let me know if this helps, thanks.

Operating System: Linux Software:

Apache MySQL version: Percona Server (GPL), Release rel5.7, Revision 26 v5.7.26-29

PHP Version: 7.4.33

PHP Memory Limit: 256M

PHP Max Input Vars: 1000

PHP Max Post Size: 100M

GD Installed: Yes

ZIP Installed: Yes

Write Permissions: All right

Elementor Library: Connected

Active Plugins

Elementor – 3.14.1 By Elementor.com

Popup Maker – 1.18.2 By Popup Maker

SiteOrigin CSS – 1.5.6 By SiteOrigin

Smush – 3.14.1 By WPMU DEV

Sucuri Security – Auditing, Malware Scanner and Hardening – 1.8.39 By Sucuri Inc.

Wordfence Security – 7.10.3 By Wordfence

WP Disable Automatic Updates – 1.1 By Daniele De Rosa

WP Favicon Remover – 1.0.2 By Hiroaki Miyashita

WPvivid Backup Plugin – 0.9.88 By WPvivid Team

Must-Use Plugins Object Cache Pro (MU) – 1.18.2 By Rhubarb Group

System Plugin – 4.79.1

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Yui.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by davidblackballdesign.

Here is system info from one of the sites that worked, the one that has been cloned:

Operating System: Linux Software:

Apache MySQL version: Percona Server (GPL), Release rel5.7, Revision 26 v5.7.26-29

PHP Version: 8.0.29

PHP Memory Limit: 256M

PHP Max Input Vars: 1000

PHP Max Post Size: 100M

GD Installed: Yes

ZIP Installed: Yes

Write Permissions: All right

Elementor Library: Connected

Name: Astra Version: 4.1.6

Author: Brainstorm Force

Child Theme: No

Active Plugins

Astra Pro – 3.6.5 By Brainstorm Force

CoBlocks – 3.0.4 By GoDaddy

Duplicate Page – 4.5.2 By mndpsingh287

Elementor – 3.14.1 By Elementor.com

Elementor Header & Footer Builder – 1.6.14 By Brainstorm Force, Nikhil Chavan

Hummingbird – 3.5.0 By WPMU DEV

Search Engine Visibility – 0.5 By GoDaddy

Smush – 3.13.2 By WPMU DEV

Sucuri Security – Auditing, Malware Scanner and Hardening – 1.8.39 By Sucuri Inc.

Wordfence Security – 7.10.0 By Wordfence

WP Disable Automatic Updates – 1.1 By Daniele De Rosa

WPForms – 1.8.2.2 By WPForms

WPvivid Backup Plugin – 0.9.88 By WPvivid Team

Yoast SEO – 20.10 By Team Yoast

Must-Use Plugins

Object Cache Pro (MU) – 1.18.2 By Rhubarb Group System Plugin – 4.79.1

I’ve tried disabling plugins, including the security ones, and the error persisted. There isn’t any logs that could indicate the security plugins are blocking Elementor. Could GoDaddy be blocking changes on their end? If so why is it only happening on some sites and not others?

Do you have any idea what might be happening?

I’m not sure about the 403 error, but we are experiencing a similar problem on two client websites hosted at GoDaddy. After updating the Elementor plugin to version 3.15.0, the layout breaks. Editing and saving the pages seems to fix the problem.

After some work, I’ve identified what is causing the problem with the 403 error on saving on the site I linked and the others. On those pages that are experiencing 403 errors, there are Zoho forms embedded on them using code pasted in Custom HTML widgets. If they are removed or on pages that don’t have them, the pages save fine.

The forms were added in and published just fine when the pages were first created. I don’t know why Elementor would suddenly have an issue with them now. These forms are essential and need to be there.

I tried deactivating Wordfence and Sucuri but there was no change. I also tried whitelisting the actions but they don’t show on the plugin logs and general whitelisting doesn’t work. I’m contacting GoDaddy to try and check if they have a firewall on their end that might be blocking Elementor.

Are there any other possibilities for why this might be happening? Please let us know if there are any other solutions we can try, thanks.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by davidblackballdesign.

Hi @davidblackballdesign ,

The 403 error usually happens due to firewall rules which prevent updating the content.

It looks like the Firewall settings on your Hosting is preventing the execution of scripts on page, which you are adding to use the Zoho Form, due to security reasons.

The hosting support should be able to check and fix this issue.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards.

Thank you. I’m trying to get in touch with my contact to check if there are firewall settings on GoDaddy that might be causing this. Have you seen other problem of styling and layouts breaking? Does this only need going into the page builder and resaving to fix?

Hello @davidblackballdesign , the layout issue other than the saving can be caused due to cache. I checked your site and it looks like your files are being loaded from cache to an extend.

View post on imgur.com

Please try these methods and tell us if they helped:
Regenerate the CSS via Elementor > Tools > Regenerate CSS on your WordPress Dashboard.

Go to Elementor > Settings on your WordPress dashboard, then Click the Advanced tab and then switch the CSS print method to Internal embedding.

Clear all cache: your browser’s cache, other plugins’ cache, server cache (if possible).

To rule out the possibility of a plugin or theme conflict, please deactivate all your plugins (besides Elementor) and see if it helps. If it solves the issue, reactivate them one by one to find the culprit.

If it didn’t help, switch your theme (temporarily) to a default WordPress theme and see if it makes any difference.

Switch the CSS print method back after following these steps, regardless if it helped or not.

Hope those steps will help you.

Thanks @thetechxpert . The cache was the first thing I checked, but it didn’t make any difference. Regenerating CSS and trying another print method had no effect either. I also tried deactivating and reactivating the plugins and the site already uses a default WordPress theme and there was no luck there. Is there anything else that it could be?

Hello @davidblackballdesign ,

I checked your site again and the cache is still being loaded.

Since there are no cache plugin running on your system, it could be possible that the hosting provider is running some optimization.

You could try contacting your hosting provider to clear all the server cache and check again.

Let us know how it goes.

Hello @thetechxpert,

Yes, that was the cache I mentioned we tried clearing, and unfortunately it didn’t work. Right now we needed to revert our version of Elementor on the page as we couldn’t have the site with the styling broken but otherwise, when we update the plugin, the buttons on the homepage end up looking like this:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/282gxpzpiv2yxh8r1rkmv/Screenshot-2023-08-04-at-19-41-00-MyForeclosureDate.com-Don-t-Wait-Until-It-s-Too-Late.png?rlkey=te249dus5m03mlkv7qy7vna22&dl=0

We need the style to stay the same after update and the thing is that the other pages on the side, the Disclaimer and Privacy Notice, do stay the same. It’s just the homepage where the style breaks.