Web Application Firewall is disabled Type: WAF Status (WP ENGINE)

Hi @bradthebluefish, thanks for reaching out to us.

WPEngine has deprecated .htaccess which was an issue for importing sites from other locations where an .htaccess was specified but should be configuring correctly when setting up a fresh installation on this setup.

For your second issue, WPEngine is meant to use MySQLi automatically, so it’s interesting that it’s having to fall back to the file method.

I would always recommend trying to run Wordfence with no other plugins enabled and a default theme such as Twenty Twenty-One and seeing if the problem persists. If it doesn’t, enable plugins one-by-one followed by your theme to see when the problem is reintroduced.

Failing this, 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.

NOTE: It should look as follows – Screenshot of Tools > Diagnostic > Send by Email

Thanks,

Peter.

Thank you Peter for the instructions.

Unfortunately, I am still receiving issues even after following your instructions. A diagnostic report has been sent regarding this issue.

Sincerely,
Bradley

Hi @bradthebluefish,

Thanks for sending over your diagnostic. Our usual advice that has worked involves removing and re-optimizing the WAF but I am aware of the lengthy steps you’ve already taken. On WP Engine, the WAF should optimize if wordfence-waf.php is in place, without needing .htaccess or .user.ini, because of WP Engine’s own auto_prepend_file.

Deactivating/activating the plugin usually fixes data issues on this platform. It is also possible that the current wordfence-waf.php is pointing to another installation on the same server, or that the MySQLi storage engine can’t use the values from wp-config.php. The path I see for wordfence-waf.php is /nas/content/live/yoursitename/wordfence-waf.php but if there are no other sites present in this location then that path is also reporting correctly.

WP Engine has also been known to rectify some issues when “Purge All Caches” in the General Settings section is tried. Let me know if that doesn’t work either after all the attempted re-installs and reactivations you’ve tried and I’ll speak with our development team to see if they can spot anything odd in the diagnostic – all of your communications and permissions settings that Wordfence requires are reporting back as OK so I’m convinced there’s something else going on, perhaps at server level.

Let me know if the the above information regarding the cache and MySQLi settings in wp-config.php seem fine.

Thanks,

Peter.

Hello again,

After further review and another round of WordPress Maintenance, I am still stuck. I have manually deleted the plugin and its SQL tables. Then installed the plugin. No luck.

Purging the cache via WP Engine’s setup was also of no luck.

I’m convinced like you are that there’s something else going on.

Let me know what I can do to assist you.

Sincerely,
Bradley