abletec

This is particularly troubling since the url I just queried you about is https://, but when I go to your site, the protocol is https. Looks like you might have 2 database table prefixes in 1 database, & you’re installing your plugs, etc, to the wrong 1?

Alex, can you please explain to me why your site url is reported in the Wf log as:
https://url2768.2share.info
? What’s the url2768?

Hey Alex? Your log isn’t viewable–it just redirects to homepage. Could you possibly do a Pastebin or similar? & did you check those Wordfence options I suggested when you did the report?

Hi, Alex. First, I hope you had a great holiday w/your family, & that you’re staying well & safe. & wishing you all the best for 2021.

If I suspect a site compromise, then 1 of the things I do is to scan using Wordfence, w/the following options all checked. You will likely want to uncheck some of these when you’ve finished, so please make note of the options that were initially unchecked so you can go back & uncheck them when the scan is complete.
* Scan core files against repository versions for changes
* Scan theme files against repository versions for changes
* Scan plugin files against repository versions for changes
* Scan wp-admin and wp-includes for files not bundled with WordPress
*Scan for signatures of known malicious files
* Scan file contents for backdoors, trojans and suspicious code
* Scan file contents for malicious URLs
* Scan posts for known dangerous URLs and suspicious content
* Scan comments for known dangerous URLs and suspicious content
* Scan WordPress core, plugin, and theme options for known dangerous URLs and suspicious content
* Scan for out of date, abandoned, and vulnerable plugins, themes, and WordPress versions
* Scan for admin users created outside of WordPress
* Scan for unauthorized DNS changes
* Scan files outside your WordPress installation
* Scan images, binary, and other files as if they were executable.

Let’s do the Wordfence scan w/those options checked & please include the report in your next reply.

If the report appears to show no evidence of a site compromise, (that still doesn’t eliminate the possibility, btw), then we’ll move onto addressing the possibility of database corruption.

Sound like a plan? If so, then let’s rock!

Hello, wci, & welcome.

In looking at your domain via MXToolbox, it appears you’re using Cloudflare. My first thought is to disable cache & see if that helps. I don’t use Cloudflare, I therefore don’t have any idea how to do that. Sorry.

Database corruption may also be an issue, as may be a site compromise, as sometimes it’s wise to alter Wordfence’s settings to catch more evidence of a hack. Let’s try disabling cache first though & see if it helps.

Hot chocolate, otw, but virtually only, I’m afraid. Spiked or clear? Marshmallows?

So I’ve looked & it does appear you’ve been working w/this a very long time–at least a month or more. Did you design the site?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by abletec. Reason: funny

:horrified!!!: Are you frickin kidding me? I think by your last comment you well understand the implications of all that.

It’s 9 in the morning. I didn’t indulge yesterday. After reading that, it’s beyond tempting, & I’m just now settling in w/coffee. Irish coffee, anyone?

I literally feel like I’m going to get sick–or cry–or both, cuz I’m not sure which.

The first error was your firewall keeping out someone trying to read the .user.ini file. After that, the errors are so inconsistent that it doesn’t point to any one thing except the interaction between PHP & WordPress. But clearly anyone who would change directory perms to 777 doesn’t know what they’re doing.

Well it isn’t even 3 pm here, so I better wait a couple hours lol. I haven’t had anything alcoholic in a year & a half, so doesn’t take much probly lol.

If you use ssh, then generally speaking the logs are located in /var/log. Sometimes CPanel also has an error logs applet that you can view most recent errors in.

I’m not seeing what you’re seeing in Chrome, interestingly enough, but again, I do feel that it’s absolutely necessary to get down to a barebones install in order to see what is/is not working & hopefully determine why. It’s why I’m kind of whinging so much about error logs lol.

Yeah, I knew it wasn’t the same company. But, you know, sometimes w/some of these hosting companies, they can have different names but the same people own them. & if they’re using crappy equipment, they do so no matter what they call themselves.

It might also be interesting to see the webserver & php configuration files.

Well actually it proved easier than I thought. His old host was an outfit called EasySpace.

This was back in August of 2015, & it was a pretty rough ride till we determined that the problem was the hosting. They tried to sell him a virtual server, but he really wasn’t technically expert enough to handle it, & he had the excellent sense to admit it.

During that time, though, both our respective local spirits vendors definitively received an uptick in business lol. It was a real pleasure working w/him, as it is you.

I’d still really like to see if there are server error logs that might provide us w/some insight. But I’m wondering increasingly if we’re dealing w/a problem similar to the one we were dealing with in the case of this gentleman I spoke of earlier. His symptoms were 504 gateway errors.

You know, tig1960, this reminds me very much of a support request I did quite a few years ago now. This gentleman, interestingly enough, was also from Scotland, if memory serves, & I’m pretty sure about that, as I recall sharing w/him that my stepmom was from there. He was having similar issues to yours, I made a similar offer of server space, he accepted, & the site worked like a charm. When he confronted his host w/that evidence, they pretty much told him what he could do w/it, & he moved on to another host, where he, I believe, ended up much happier. I’ll see if I can find where he hosted. It’d be interesting if it’s the same place.

It’s been quite a few years now, though, so it isn’t exactly gonna be easy.

Again, tig1960, the key at present is to strip down to a default install. Once we know that’s working, then we can begin to introduce various functionality to see if it breaks the site. First the theme, then essential functionality such as WooCommerce, then functions like hiding the login, etc.

Caching is frosting on the cake. We add it last when the site is working well & changes don’t need to be made, else we risk missing these.

If you’re going to use a caching plugin, you may wish to look at the LiteSpeed caching plugin for WordPress, since that appears to be the webserver software you’re using. But that is truly the icing, or even the decorations atop the icing, as it were, if I make my analogy clear.

The problem w/intermittent site issues is just as you say–you never know whether the site’s working because it’s fixed or whether it’s just a querk in the intermittent nature of the site.

Now that coffee is on board & brain is as fully engaged as it can be, you might also wish to look at your resource usage under CPanel to see if you’re hitting any limits. That, too, may also be very instructive.

Lastly, if things continue to go weird, I can offer you space on my server to build an identical staging site to see if the problems are duplicated there. A site is only as good as the platform it’s built on, after all.

The other thing that’s troubling me at this juncture is that /wp-admin should bring me to a login page if this is a default install, & it’s not. So clearly something is still not at its default setting.

tig1960, please also (for now) delete the super cache plugin. If you find a file called advanced-cache.php in wp-content, please delete also.

Try introducing your theme now please & see how that goes.

Tig1960, any possibility you could check your error logs from LiteSpeed?

When I face a problem like this, 1 of the things I do is to strip down. No–I don’t mean me–that would be distinctly unhelpful, & this is, after all, a public forum–but I do mean that I take it down to a default theme and no plugins & see what I get. If errors are occurring there, then I know this is some sort of misconfiguration, or, the Dear Lord forbid, a site compromise. I’m not seeing evidence of that, please understand, but sometimes one doesn’t.

If, on the other hand, things work as anticipated, then I begin introducing things 1 by 1, trying stuff after each introduction till stuff goes pear-shaped.

Error logs in this situation, though, are often very very helpful, & seeing what your server’s putting out in that regard might well help us solve this. I know you said you’ve done this previously, but viewing error logs while doing so may well prove helpful.

Often, there are error logs in WordPress’s root folder, as well as subfolders. As well, you’ve got CPanel, & that, too, at times has error logs. You told us you have a dedicated server, & logs are often located in /var/log/webservername, but again, there are no standards in this regard & it varies from system to system.

I appreciate you translating the screen shot. I was at some point going to ask you to do that for me. I happen to be completely blind now, & the program I use to make my computer talk to me doesn’t read screen shots by default, & the use of optical character recognition is often inaccurate enough to be really unhelpful. So thanks for that, &, if you post a screenshot for normally sighted volunteers, please just give me a quick translation so I can be of more help, since I’m who you’ve got at this point :). I seriously hate to impose, but…

My tendency at this juncture is to suspect a misconfiguration of some sort, but whether it’s on the server level or something in WordPress itself I’m uncertain. I don’t give up easily, though. I do find that dedicated servers are tough for folks to manage unless they have a shipload of technical expertise, & I don’t advise them for the general website user for that reason. You seem to be handling this quite admirably, though, so you may well be 1 of those folks who could actually benefit from a racecar as opposed to the typical family vehicle, as it were.

I’m certainly willing to look at error logs if you post them.

The other option you’ve got is to post a job on
jobs.wordpress.net
under performance or general. Obviously be sure you know you can trust anyone to whom you give your CPanel/WordPress credentials before doing so, which is a disadvantage of doing that. You might wish to advise us you’ve done that.

If I think of anything else (I’ve written this w/o a full quota of coffee on board), I’ll reply this topic. I’m still very much interested in continuing to try to troubleshoot this–I always like a good investigation–sorry it’s at your expense–but obviously I need a few more tools now to obtain the info necessary to solve this.

Give it some thought, & let us know what you decide &/or post error logs.

Tig1960, please accept my apologies. I was away yesterday.

Let’s look at a few things.
1) Please examine your public_html directory in terms of its ownership. This should be owned by the webserver group. Often that’s ww-data, but it varies w/operating systems/webservers. If you’ve set ownership to be by your home user, then please ensure that that user is indeed a member of the webserver group.
2) Directory permissions are generally set to 644, file permissions to 644 or 755.
3) It might well be helpful to look at your server error logs. Specifically I’m wondering if your session data is being saved to a writeable directory–that’s 1 thing. I’m also receiving lots of errors such as:
DevTools failed to load SourceMap: Could not load content for https://www.woodlandtreasures.co.uk/wp-content/themes/Divi/includes/builder/frontend-builder/build/frontend-builder-global-functions.js.map: HTTP error: status code 404, net::ERR_HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE_FAILURE

So it seems as though your theme isn’t loading properly.

Feel free to share any errors from your logs you think might help.