Wordfence is blocking a login

  • Resolved TheSupercargo

    (@thesupercargo)


    2 years, 2 months ago

    I run a small international WordPress/Buddypress site. We have members from around the world, some of them elderly and without much Internet literacy. We use Wordfence.

    One member – in Spain – is having extreme difficulties in logging into the site. Repeatedly getting a 503 error. The Activity Detail says she is using an invalid user name. It doesn’t tell me what username she has used, so I can’t check, but I don’t think WordFence can be correct. She only has one e-mail address.

    She was having this same problem earlier in the year and in the end I could only solve it by erasing her membership and giving her a new one. That seemed to work for a while, but now we’re back to the same issue again. What can I do?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi @thesupercargo, thanks for getting in touch.

    I think there could be two potential issues here that are causing problems for the user. Firstly, they may be genuinely using the wrong username as this can sometimes be different to email address in WordPress. Naturally, you can check this from your end and double-check with them which username they’re attempting to use versus which username is listed for their email address in your WordPress admin area.

    Secondly, it is recommended that online stores, or sites that handle many non-admin logins have strict settings such as Wordfence > All Options > Brute Force Protection > Immediately lock out invalid usernames turned off. You could also make sure that the settings above this aren’t too strict, so could allow more login attempts (10 or 20) over a longer time period so that mistyped details aren’t blocked so eagerly.

    There are certain other circumstances like caching, invalid inputs being saved locally in autocomplete fields or browser plugins that could also be affecting a user’s experience that are out of your control. Despite their perceived lack of literacy around online matters, it could be worth seeing if using a different browser or an incognito/private window reduces their chances of being blocked due to some of these reasons.

    Let me know how you/they get on!

    Peter.

    Thread Starter TheSupercargo

    (@thesupercargo)

    Thanks for your reply, Peter.

    I think it may be the first issue. The lady has a googlemail.com address and a gmail.com address and she seems to be using both indiscriminately. They both feed to her same postbox and she doesn’t see a difference, but maybe WordPress and WordFence do.

    I’ll come back when I have a definite answer.

    John

    I also experiencing a similar issue.

    All my registered users cannot login. New users also cannot register. When you click the login button, it just loads and stops. There is no error message shown. just loading and blocking. I am sure it is an issue with wordfence because when I deactivate wordfence. It allows logins and registration normally.

    As an admin, I can login successfully to backend without a problem. But registered users are having a problem. I even created my own demo user account for a normal subscriber, but itis also having the same problem.

    What could be the problem here.

    Thread Starter TheSupercargo

    (@thesupercargo)

    I’ve no idea what your problem is @try22
    However the googlemail/gmail username seems to be the problem I and my member were facing. It’s resolved and I’m marking this as such.
    Many thanks for your quick response @wfpeter

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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