Blocks well but breaks theme in multisite

Hi ThePrudentNinja,

Sorry for inconvenience.

Until I fix this issue, please set “Theme area” as “Disable” in “IP Geo Block” -> “Settings” -> “Validation settings“.

Thanks for your reporting.

Thank you for your reply, but it is already set as such and the problem is there.

Hi ThePrudentNinja,
Thanks for checking your settings.

I’m now investigating why the images under the “wp-content/themes/twentyten/” are blocked by this plugin. I gratefully need your help to fix this issue.

Related to the query string, “ip-geo-block-auth=xxxxxxx” will be added when a image file under the “wp-content/themes/” is requested from the page only while you are logging in as an administrator. Definitely, this should be removed (at the next release).

But any files other than php under the “wp-content/(plugins|themes)/” are designed not to be blocked by this plugin. So I think that the query string doesn’t have a relationship with this issue, but it should be confirmed by enabling “Record validation logs” on “Settings” tab.

So the first question is:

(1) Could you find any logs which can identify this issue on the “Logs” tab? (probably at the “Admin area“) If yes, please post the logs.

One of the possibilities I guess is that your server is configured to redirect the files under “wp-content/themes/” to “wp-content/plugins/ip-geo-block/rewrite.php“. I’ve confirmed advanced feature of “rewrite.php” on the apache server but not on the nginx.

So the next question is:

(2) Do you customize the redirection rules arround the “wp-content/themes/“? If so, would you mind stopping it?

Then the other thought. I observed some obscure facts.

(A) Sometimes the image can be shown on the browser but sometimes can’t.
(B) Direct access to the image file from the browser’s address bar always returns 200 OK.
(C) After the direct access to the image, the page will be OK for a while (because the image files are in the browser’s cache).
(D) When I access your site without referer (eliminated by RefControl), the page seems to be OK.

I think (D) is doubtful. But I also hope you to confirm your configuration related to the referer control or something.

I already found some points of improvement in this plugin. But I’ve not yet caught the certain reason why this issue happnes. So any help or information would be appreciated!!

Thanks.

It seems to have been fixed. I’m still not sure “what” was causing it but it was related to this plugin since when disabled there was no 403.

It may be a conflict with the W3 Total Cache plugin, I had it “network enabled” for all the sites on the multisite for ease and I disabled it and a few minutes later it seemed to fix itself. The IP Geo Block settings are still as they were when it didn’t work right. The only known change between working and not working is the “network disabling” of the W3 Total Cache plugin. However after enabling it again network wide, I can’t reproduce the 403 problem.

If you need more information, please let me know. Thank you.

EDIT: I created a new site in the multisite with the W3 Total Cache plugin “network activated” and the same 403 issue showed again. I disabled the W3 Total Cache network wide and the problem cleared up. It looks to me like a conflict between W3 Total Cache and IP Geo Block.

Thank you for your information.
I feel relieved to hear that the issue gone.

I tried to find the message body when 403 occurred, but no message was there. So to identify the issue, please try to set “Response code” to 503 Service Unavailable for example at “Validation settings” if you mind.

Once I will close this topic, but I think the issue is still there. So I keep tring to figure out the reason by checking the conflict with W3TC. Please keep logging on this plugin’s validation logs to find the clear evidence and feel free to open new topic to post it.

Thank you for your cooperation so much!

There is surely something with the W3 Total Cache. I can now replicate the issue each time I activate it and the issue goes away each time I deactivate it. I changed the “Response code” to “503 Service Unavailable” but the error is still 403. I will leave everything as is for now since the affected site is not “public” yet.

Hi, I was sorry for my closing this issue. Your goal is setting W3TC as “network enabled” for multi site by subdomain on nginx.

I think this plugin may (or should) have no chance to respond 403 when you set “Response code” to 503. So I have to find who respond 403.

I’m still working on this issue. Please keep watching this topic (and also 503).

Thanks.

Hi ThePrudentNinja,

I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for a long time. I hope you come back to this thread.

I had released the new version to eliminate unnecessary query string like ip-geo-block-auth=xxx from static resources such as image files. And also confirmed that this plugin doesn’t block image files.

So I think your issue is caused by other factors. For example, you can find Nginx + W3 Total Cache + 403 Forbidden Error in support forum.
I recommend you to deactivate all plugins and activate them one by one to determine the cause.

I appreciate if you report your status again.

Thanks.