2FA Won’t Stay Activated

  • Resolved William Gentry

    (@looksharp)


    4 years, 2 months ago

    Hi,

    I previously had 2FA activated. Recently, it was somehow deactivated. This happened before, but I was able to reactivate 2FA with minimal trouble the other times. This time, I’m not exactly sure when it was deactivated or what caused it, but it’s been within the last few days. It was never deactivated after plugin updates. I suspect that it could have occurred during the last Wordfence update or with the latest WP core update.

    When I activate 2FA and leave the page, it won’t stay activated. In addition, the settings to require all administrators use 2FA, grace period, and Disable 2FA for XML-RPC will not stay set.

    I tried the following:
    1. Clear browser cache.
    2. Retry 2FA activation several times.
    3. Deactivated all plugins except Wordfence, retry 2FA activation.
    4. Reactivated all plugins, retry 2FA activation.
    5. Change theme to twenty twenty-one, retry 2FA activation.
    6. Change theme back to Astra, retry 2FA activation.
    6. Checked Server Time: matches Wordfence time.

    None of the above changed the outcome. 2FA will not stay activated.

    I took a look at the Wordfence db tables.
    wfls_2fa_secrets and wfls_settings tables are both of type InnoDB while all other tables, including those for other plugins and WP core, are of type MyISAM. Seems that could be a problem?

    WP Version: 5.6
    Wordfence Version: 7.4.14 (1607007971)
    Theme: Astra
    Browser: Chrome
    2FA Authenticator: Google Authenticator (I don’t really want to use a different app as I have several other web accounts using Google Authenticator)

    Please advise. I’d really like to get this straightened out.

    William

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

  • I am also unable to activate the Wordfence 2FA.

    I get the following error:

    “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page”
    wp_die()
    wp-admin/includes/menu.php:350
    Query Monitor

    I have disabled ALL plugins and also did the WP update (that i did NOT want to do due to being a major update instead of a minor update).

    EDIT:

    Ok, i got the Login Security tab to show…. i did this by disabling Wordfence, then waited a minute, and enabled it again.

    Maybe if you try to disable Wordfence, then enable it again, it might work for you too.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by senjowo.
    Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Hello @looksharp and thanks for reaching out to us!

    This could be a possible issue with jquery or the data tables might be corrupt. I see you mentioned your security tables being InnoDB, that’s normal and correct.

    Can you send a diagnostic report to wftest @ wordfence . com? You can find the link to do so at the top of the Wordfence Tools > Diagnostics page. Then click on “Send Report by Email”. Please add your forum username where indicated and respond here after you have sent it.

    You could also try what @senjowo suggested and deactivate Wordfence and then activate it again.

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter William Gentry

    (@looksharp)

    Hi @wfadam,

    Thank you for your reply. I tried @senjowo’s suggestion even though my issue is different. It didn’t fix my issue.

    I sent the diagnostic report as requested a few minutes ago.

    William

    Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Thanks for sending that diagnostic @looksharp

    Everything looks good on your diagnostic. We might want to delete the security tables and reinstall them.

    Navigate to Wordfence > Login Security > Settings and check Delete Login Security tables and data on deactivation. Deactivate Wordfence now, then enable it again. This should give you some fresh Security tables.

    Let me know if this helps!

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter William Gentry

    (@looksharp)

    Hi @wfadam,

    I tried your latest suggestion, but it didn’t work. When I selected the checkbox to delete those tables and saved the settings, it was unchecked after the page reloaded. Still, I went ahead and tried activating 2FA, but it was not activated.

    William

    Thread Starter William Gentry

    (@looksharp)

    Perhaps deactivating Wordfence, dropping those two tables manually, and reactivating the plugin will work?

    Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Is that the only page that isn’t responsive? You could try to drop the tables manually if you’re comfortable doing that. Make sure to have Wordfence turned off before you do so.

    Let me know what you find!

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter William Gentry

    (@looksharp)

    I’m not sure. Pretty sure I used to see a complete list of IPs that were blocked, but there is only one from a couple of weeks ago.

    I’ll try dropping the security tables manually and let you know how that works.

    William

    Thread Starter William Gentry

    (@looksharp)

    Hi @wfadam,

    Success! Finally!

    I deactivated Wordfence, dropped the two security tables manually, and reactivated Wordfence. Updated settings to require 2FA for administrators, enabled the grace period for activating 2FA, and enabled XML-RPC (because I use Jetpack). Saved settings. Settings saved. Activated 2FA for my admin account and signed out. Signed back in, OTC was required for sign in. Upon login, went to Login Settings > Settings and saw that 1 administrator (me) has 2FA enabled.

    Problem solved. The information about the security tables was the information I needed to fix the problem. Thank you for your help.

    William

    Plugin Support WFAdam

    (@wfadam)

    Great success! Glad we could finally get to the resolution!

    Thanks for letting me know! If you need anything else, always reach out to us!

    Thanks again!

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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