Wordfence rules not updating

  • Resolved miku888

    (@miku888)


    9 months, 3 weeks ago

    “Wordfence rules not updating”

    I’m getting this a lot on all the sites I manage. In the tools > diagnostics all my sites have this:

    • 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:

    I’m wondering what to do here and if it’s related to cron jobs. I have turned off cron jobs in the wp-config file and turned them on manually to run once an hour in my Siteground dev tools.

    Thanks for your help!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi @miku888, thanks for getting in touch.

    The IPv6 issue above shouldn’t be a problem as it’s common for certain platforms, such as Cloudflare, to assign an IPv6 address but the host doesn’t allow it to be used. If your IPv4 connectivity and connectivity to our servers look good in your Diagnostics page then rules updates should work.

    The source of the message may be that the hourly schedule causes some WP cron jobs to be overdue at times, so WAF rule updates may not happen as often as they should. If you try to manually refresh the rules in Wordfence > Firewall > All Firewall Options > Advanced Firewall Options does it complete successfully?

    Thanks,
    Peter.

    Thread Starter miku888

    (@miku888)

    Yes I can update the rules manually. My hosting company recommended cron jobs to run once per hour. What every half hour help to reduce these messages from happening?

    Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi @miku888,

    It is possible that the message is related to the cron jobs piling up, as the manual rule update shows the communication to/from our servers seem fine.

    It is possible that the rules are actually getting updated, but the timestamp that says when they were updated is getting overwritten by an overlapping cron. That is usually rare, but it could be more likely if multiple cron jobs are overdue when your hourly update comes around. The timestamp on wp-content/wflogs/rules.php when getting the message should reveal if that date/time is recent. If so, it’s a sign of overlapping jobs.

    I’d recommend setting cron jobs to run at least every 5 minutes. If there are no jobs that are due when it runs, cron will simply exit without doing anything so not cause excessive load on your server. If there are jobs due, they’ll be run more regularly and not be at risk of bunching up.

    Thanks again,
    Peter.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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