Unable to communicate Website – wordfence central

Hello @lieselot11111 and thanks for reaching out to us!

To be clear, you have two websites you are trying to add to Wordfence Central? You said one does connect and one doesn’t?

If this is the case, within Wordfence Central, go to the Connection Issues tab. Clear out any sites that might be in here.

Now head over to your site and log in as an admin. Navigate to Tools > Diagnostics > Other Tests > Clear all Wordfence Central connection data. Clear the connection data and then head back over to Wordfence Central and try to connect the site again.

https://www.wordfence.com/help/central/connect/#troubleshooting-connection-issues also has some troubleshooting steps you could follow.

Let me know if this helps!

Thanks!

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.
I followed your advice and I also tried everything under ‘Other connection issues’ of your link. But it still doesn’t work.

I also tried to connect my old websites. One of the three old websites succeeded. Two got this error: We’ve detected Varnish blocking our requests to your site
I have the latest updates (plugins and wordpress).

Hello again @lieselot11111

Try to disable the Varnish plugin, then navigate to Tools > Diagnostics > Other Tests > Clear all Wordfence Central connection data. Clear the connection data and then head back over to Wordfence Central and try to connect the site again.

It looks like Varnish is caching something that is causing an issue with Wordfence Central. It is most likely caching the REST API and causing the issue.

Let me know how this goes!

Thanks!

Hi Adam,

You sent me an answer in email.
I don’t have a varnish plugin, but I disabled the cache plugin. This also didn’t work.
Could it be because the websites I want to connect are temporarily on coming soon mode?
It’s the only equation I can think of.

Can you send a diagnostic report to wftest @ wordfence . com? You can find the link to do so at the top of the Wordfence Tools > Diagnostics page. Then click on “Send Report by Email”. Please add your forum username where indicated and respond here after you have sent it.

I’ll have a look and see if I see anything out of the ordinary. You mentioned you don’t use Varnish but the error message you had sent me states that’s the issue.

Thanks!

Ok I sent you two of them.
The first one has this error: We’ve detected Varnish blocking our requests to your site
I have the latest updates.
And the second one this error: Unable to communicate with Wordfence plugin.
Thank you.

@lieselot11111

It looks like your REST API is blocked for users that aren’t logged in. I just did some tests on my end.

Note: Wordfence Central uses the WordPress REST API to communicate with the plugin. If you’ve disabled the REST API or set it to require authentication, you’ll need to enable it before connecting your site to Central.

Not sure if its something you have set on your side or a plugin that is causing it, but if you enable the REST API, it will resolve your issue.

Let me know if this helps!

Thanks!