Cannot log in + no error display

I have had similar problems since 7.6.2.
When I try to login there seems to be a problem with the form submission. In my webserver log I see an error 402.

mod_security rule [id “5000214”] at [/etc/apache2/conf.d/modsec2.xyz.conf:530] triggered!
[Mon Oct 03 15:56:32.187082 2022] [error] [client xx.xxx.xxx.xxx] ModSecurity: Access denied with code 402, [Rule: ‘&ARGS:action’ ‘@eq 0’] [id “5000214”] [hostname “website.org”] [uri “/wp-login.php”], referer: hxxps://website.org/wp-login.php?loggedout=true&wp_lang=en_US

The modsec rule triggers when there’s null values in the form.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by ronnieee.

Hi @dienies, thanks for reaching out to us.

When it appears that the login button has been pressed already, this could point to broken Javascript due to a plugin conflict, or assets loading in the wrong order on your site. My first thought would be to disable all plugins except for Wordfence and revert to a default theme such as Twenty Twenty-Two. Can you use the login form under these circumstances? If so, start to reintroduce your plugins and theme one-by-one to see when the page breaks again.

Let me know what you find out!

Peter.

@ronnieee, although your issue is with the login process, we do request in the forum guidelines that each user submit their own topic. When the causes/solutions are different, the threads can get difficult to follow. We’ll be glad to help you out if you want to go ahead and do that.

SOLVED
Thank you for the guidance. I did deactivate all the plugins except Wordfence and switched themes, but it still did not work.

However, between all the activating and deactivation of Wordfence to test the login and to actually get into the site, it did a clean install at some point and now all is well in the land. I can login as normal. (I did at a previous point deleted and re-installed Wordfence, but that did not work as well.) Now all is good.

Thanks!

Whoops no, I was mistaken. The problem has not been solved, the reason I could log in was because Wordfence was actually deactivated sorry.

So still a problem to log in once Wordfence is activated. And I have deactivated all plugins and switched themes.

Hi @dienies, sorry to hear that it wasn’t actually solved.

It does sound unusual when Wordfence is effectively stand-alone the button doesn’t reactivate as this isn’t a widespread issue across our userbase. Did you also try logging in using a private/incognito window, or even better a different browser to your default at this time? It may also have helped to clear out any caching plugins you have. The broken login button could’ve feasibly been cached to give the impression the issue was still there.

If the above doesn’t work either, 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.

NOTE: It should look as follows – Screenshot of Tools > Diagnostic > Send by Email

The request for diagnostics may help us spot issues with your configuration that could be contributing factors towards why this might be happening. I viewed your login page but naturally I wasn’t getting the same behavior with the button as Wordfence may be disabled at this time.

Thanks again,

Peter.