wp-admin URL is suddenly changing, breaking backend

Did you change any of the two URLs at Settings > General in your Dashboard?

Hey James,

I did not. Just checking it now though…

Hovering over Settings -> General the link showing is https://4wdabc.ca/banners/options-general.php – clicking that gives me a 404.

If I paste that into the URL bar and change /banners/ to /wp-admin/ it works.

Both URLs show https://4wdabc.ca as they should.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Ok, make sure that the siteurl and home values are correct in the Database under “Changing the URL directly in the database” at?https://developer.www.ads-software.com/advanced-administration/upgrade/migrating/#changing-the-site-url

You’ll find phpMyAdmin in your hosting account’s control panel.

siteurl and home are both correct ??

Just ran my host’s internal site restore to go back to about 3AM this morning, long before the glitching started (and notably, before I manually updated several user accounts), and it’s still doing the same thing (and I’ve confirmed, the changes made to user accounts are not there).

Rolling back to where I left off so at least those account updates remain.

Is there a /banners/ directory on your server and do you recognize the files in there?

None at all. under /public_html/ the only folders are wp-includes, wp-admin, and wp-content.

No banners folders under any of those, either.

That would be why clicking any of those links gives me a 404. Unless something is borked with a redirect function, but you’d think restoring yesterday’s version would fix that.

So if I activate a plugin by manually copy/pasta the /banners/plugins.php?etcetcetc and edit it to /wp-admin/plugins.php then the plug is activated and I get the “WP Rocket – Clear cache” prompt at the top… the button on that properly points to /wp-admin/admin-post.php?action=purge_cache&type=all&_wpnonce=a1ca90a270

Ok, if you didn’t change the siteurl and home values, if they are still correct in the database, and if you don’t recognize /banners/, then I recommend carefully follow?this guide.

When you’re done, you may want to implement some (if not all) of?the recommended security measures?and?start backing up your site.

I had that thought as well, but it’s so… specific. And the fact that restoring yesterday’s version of the site didn’t fix it makes me wonder if it’s something with the host.

And I’m realizing that links within a page are correct: like, if I load up the Plugins page… I can hover over the Activate/Deactivate or Settings link for each one, and I get the right /wp-admin/ path. If I click it, it does the right thing, then lands back at the main admin page but with the /banners/ address. The top menu bar links are correct, but the left menu links are not.

I’ll go through the hack checkup tomorrow, but it seems to me the effect of something like that would be far more wide-spread.

I’m having the same issue. Haven’t logged in for a couple of days, and suddenly it changed. After I log in, this is the url of my dashboard:
https://www.hyc.be/banners/border-radius:50%25mob.svg?__cf_chl_rt_tk=PTNZQMbRMVrAepugWD1tuNsRkitO.T24NHMfJhz3LEI-1719217280-0.0.1.1-3774

We experience the same problem right now on two of our sites. We found one similarity between them: the plugin “PDF & Print Pro von BestWebSoft” is installed on both sites. Is it installed on your sites as well @standingout and @4wdabcwebmaster ?

(we’re investigating more right now)

A quick follow up: we deactivated the plugin (by renaming the concerning folder “pdf-print-pro” in /wp-content/plugins/). Now the backend works normally as expected.

Thus, we suspect it is a problem with this plugin.

For me it was the plugin “Captcha by BestWebSoft”, after disabling it, everything worked again. I guess it’s a problem with plugins from bestwebsoft

Good to know @standingout, so let’s file some bug reports on their end. Hopefully they will fix this asap.