Wordfence Enabled and Running but showing Firewall 20%

Hi @siobhanf, thanks for reaching out.

I have not seen a site revert to 0% for this after previously working for a long period of time, although it could be a sign that something has stopped working. It’s worth checking your Wordfence > Tools > Diagnostics page to see if you’re getting any red errors under the IP Detection or Connectivity headings specifically, but let me know if you see others.

The maximum value a free site can reach for the WAF is 55%, and Firewall Rules 70% which average to 64% on your plugin dashboard:

Users of the free version can reach a maximum rating of 64% (as displayed on the “Dashboard” page) and 55% (as displayed on the “Firewall” page).

https://www.wordfence.com/help/firewall/

If you mouse-over the percentage charts, a tooltip will tell you which settings you need to enable in the settings to increase the number. It’s also worth following that to see if any settings have been changed.

Let me know how you get on!
Peter.

Hi, thanks for getting back to me Peter. I have checked the diagnostics as suggested and I do have the following message under Connectivity:

Connecting back to this site via IPv6 (not required; failure to connect may not be an issue on some sites) (opens in new tab)

wp_remote_post() test back to this server failed! Response was: cURL error 7:

Sorry, I should have asked – can you suggest what I can do re this error message

Hi, sorry, still trying to get this resolved. I have looked at the tooltips as well – they are saying to enable my Firewall. But, when I select Manage Firewall the option for the Firewall Status is enables and protecting. However, the 4 dials at the top all show 0% except for the Brute Force which shows 100%.

I have contacted my hosting provider. They don’t provide IPv6 connectivity so have suggested I tick “Use only IPv4 to start scans”. I have done that, and have forced a re-scan but I have still got the same problem. they have now suggested I contact Wordfence for assistance.

Hi @siobhanf,

Yes, they’re correct that if IPv4 isn’t showing connection errors (and scans/rule updates etc. are working), some software – such as Cloudflare as one example – assigns an IPv6 address to your site even if your host doesn’t give you an IPv6 address. This is a likely cause for a connection failure to be reported here and can be ignored.

I think it’s best to send a copy of your diagnostics to us at wftest @ wordfence . com directly using the link 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.

Thanks Peter.

I have now run the diagnostics and sent it. I a popup confirming it had been sent successfully.

Hi @siobhanf,

I’ve just become aware of a bug where 0% can be shown (even if the firewall is “Enabled and Protecting”) can be caused by enabling the plugin via the Command Line Interface (CLI). This can often be solved by disabling the plugin from the WordPress > Plugins list and reenabling it again. Let me know if that makes any difference to your reported percentages.

Thanks again,
Peter.

HI Peter

OK, I’ve tried that. I logged into WordPress and plugins and deactivated the Wordfence plugin. After that every time I tried to do anything I got an error page with a code 500. I couldn’t get back into Wordfence to activate it again. Everything I clicked on on the menu eg Pages, Appearance etc came up with the same error. So I logged into cPanel and activated the Wordfence plugin from there. Once I did that it I was able to access the menus an everything seems to be working but I am still sitting with the same percentages ie Firewall at 20%, when I try to manage Firewall those dials are at 0% (except for Brute Force which is at 100%) and Enabled and Protecting is selected.