WordPress admin panel times out

have you tried connecting through another IP address when things get timed out? For example, try using your phone or tether your computer/laptop/tablet to your phone. That will rule out your home network.

@papaburke: Who is the webhost? From DNS, it appears to be “toast.net”. Is that a private server? Or a commercial webhost?

The host provider is Toast.net; they are a service provider.

When the system times out I cannot access WordPress or my public site. I have two devices, one Windows and one Apple, and both receive the time out error. However, others can access the public site from other locations when I cannot.

The system becomes functional in approximately ten minutes. WordPress is fully functional without me having to sign in again. It’s like nothing happened.

<deleted because my idea was wrong>

However, others can access the public site from other locations when I cannot.

You really need to talk to Toast; sounds like they have a security config that is blocking your IP when WordPress tries to take more than a few seconds to post, and then resets to allow access after 10 minutes. They should have server logs that will show what’s happening. It’s mod_security, DDOS protection, etc.

Not sure how competent Toast is; your server is still running PHP 5.4.36, which is 2.5 years out of date, which means PHP is buggy and insecure.

I just re-created the situation. I do it by clicking on the save draft button on a page (or post) that has not been published. I don’t know if this is the only situation, but it is the one I found.

Again, all plug-ins are disabled.

When the system comes back up I will switch to a WordPress default theme to see if I can re-create it as well. Please keep in mind, I don’t know if my actions will always result in a time-out message, but it seems to.

Try accessing the public site now; https://ForgottenThymeFarm.com

works just fine

I still do not have access to WordPress or the public site. It doesn’t seem like it is tied to the host providers since other aren’t affected. However, this is just a guess.

@papaburke: read my post above.

Thank you. I will reach out to them again and have this conversation.

So far they have told me all is well on their side and they keep referring to the fact that others have access. They remind me that while they offer WordPress, they don’t support it and they continue to suggest it is a WordPress issue.

I am working with both sides; I just want this resolved.

Take care,
Bill

Hi @papaburke,

I’m with Wordfence – which is why this thread came to my attention. I chatted about this briefly with other forum folks in the slack channel. I suspect it might be that your web servers child processes are all being occupied by something which makes them unable to respond.

The only way to resolve this kind of problem is to work with your hosting provider. Specifically have them enable error logging on your site. Then reproduce the problem. And then check the error logs to see what messages you’re seeing.

My guess is if you go through the above steps, you’ll diagnose it very quickly.

I don’t think it’s a security product blocking you because us security products tend to give you a very clear response immediately saying that you’ve been blocked. Timeouts are sometimes given as a response, but you generally see that at the operating system level where there’s a iptables rule that simply drops all packets for a time. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here – I think it’s a web server misconfiguration issue and all processes are being occupied until they timeout.

So work with your host and that should solve it.

Good luck!!

Mark.

I think you should try another network. Maybe at Starbucks or somewhere like that.

I can’t duplicate the problem and in spite of what you host told you there is a security setting or something locking you out for 10 minutes.

But try changing the wp-config.php to gain more memory

Look for the statement that says:
/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Replace it by cutting and pasting this:

define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

[edit] I posted this before reading what the others were saying. If someone else can see your site while you can’t then clearly your IP is being blocked. WordPress has been downloaded 5,713,333 times. I am pretty sure it is not WordPress.

Guys, thank you!

I have sent the suggestions and requests to my hosting provider. I will let you know their response.

@WordFence, I do use your plug-in, but it is currently disabled, along with all of the plug-ins.