Error Fetching Plugins – Resolved

  • Resolved mwarbinek

    (@mwarbinek)


    8 years, 3 months ago

    I figured that posting this makes a more recent support post to those who experienced the same problem I did.

    Problem
    JetPack was just updated within the last week or two. I manage 2 websites on the same WordPress account for a client. The update disconnected JetPack to the WordPress account. After I reactivated the JetPack connection to the WordPress account for both sites (one at a time), WordPress management for plugins gave a red banner error “Error Fetching Plugins…”.

    I did not check the WordPress management account to see if all was fine until the second website.

    Suggested Troubleshoot
    Some support replies by JetPack guru’s was to check which site was causing the fetch error. My understanding of that was if you have multiple sites under one WordPress Management Account, one site can trigger/cause fetching errors for all sites.

    This means we have to find which site was causing the issue. This means we have to deactivate JetPack for each site and one by one test each one separately.

    Do a sequential activation (activate JetPack, check if Ok, if Ok, leave active and connected), but after a few sites, the problem reoccurs and now all sites are disconnected.

    IF that did not fix the issue and did not actually identify the trouble suite, then…

    …a sequential activation/deactivation process (activate, check if Ok, if Ok, deactivate/disconnect and go to the next one).

    For those with many sites, that is cumbersome, but the only way so far. This led to my resolution.

    Resolution

    1. Deactivated JetPack on both sites.
    2. Made sure I was logged out of the WordPress Management Account.
    3. Re-activated JetPack on one site only,
    4. Reconnected JetPack to the WordPress Account,
    5. Entered the WordPress account to check if it lists the plugins or gives an error. – It worked, no error./ Left JetPack active and connected.
    6. Logged out of the WordPress account, Logged out of the website
    7. Logged into the second website, reactivated JetPack,
    8. Reconnected JetPack in the second site to the same WordPress account
    9. Checked the plugin list to see if it displays or gives an error, – it worked, no error
    10. All fixed

    Why did the the Fetch Error Occur
    Exactly why, I do not know, and I am not sure that by allowing one site to fully connect, then actually checking the plugin list, to allow it to load (one site at a time) in WordPress Manager has something to do with it, but if it did, I resolved the issue by allowing and checking one site at a time.

    Maybe a JetPack rep can comment to this and make sense of it.

    Hope this helps.

    Suggestion:
    JetPack needs to provide some method to check if things worked properly and if not give the error in the WordPress Admin area instead of just in the WordPress Manage Account. This early notification can ward off a lot of time and hassle and alert the user to which WordPress site is causing the issue as it happens.

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/jetpack/

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    This means we have to find which site was causing the issue. This means we have to deactivate JetPack for each site and one by one test each one separately.

    Instead of deactivating Jetpack, you could have used the site switcher in WordPress.com’ sidebar to only view plugins for one site at a time. You would have then seen which site generates an error, and which one doesn’t. It might be worth a try next time.

    Why did the the Fetch Error Occur
    Maybe a JetPack rep can comment to this and make sense of it.

    Do not hesitate to reply to the last email you received from one of my colleagues. If you know what site you had trouble with, we can look into that site’s connection to try to understand what happened.

    JetPack needs to provide some method to check if things worked properly and if not give the error in the WordPress Admin area instead of just in the WordPress Manage Account

    You can use Jetpack’s Debug menu in your site’s dashboard to find out more about your site’s connection to WordPress.com. If there are any issues with your site’s connection, it will be displayed there. To access that menu, you can go to the Jetpack menu in your dashboard, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on Debug.

    I hope this helps!

    Thread Starter mwarbinek

    (@mwarbinek)

    Instead of deactivating Jetpack, you could have used the site switcher in WordPress.com’ sidebar to only view plugins for one site at a time. You would have then seen which site generates an error, and which one doesn’t. It might be worth a try next time.

    I did that, both showed fetching errors.

    Do not hesitate to reply to the last email you received from one of my colleagues. If you know what site you had trouble with, we can look into that site’s connection to try to understand what happened.

    I have not received any emails yet.

    You can use Jetpack’s Debug menu in your site’s dashboard to find out more about your site’s connection to WordPress.com. If there are any issues with your site’s connection, it will be displayed there. To access that menu, you can go to the Jetpack menu in your dashboard, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on Debug.

    I was referring to a label that appears like the update WordPress one. That idea to confirm all is connected and working. Then use the debug if the alert shows a problem.

    Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    I have not received any emails yet.

    Oh, my bad. I had assumed you had been in touch with us about this already, but I understand now that you were referring to other threads on these forums:

    Some support replies by JetPack guru’s was to check which site was causing the fetch error.

    Feel free to send us an email, we’ll be happy to take a closer look!

    I did that, both showed fetching errors.

    That most likely indicates issues with both sites. It would be worth looking into this.

    I was referring to a label that appears like the update WordPress one. That idea to confirm all is connected and working. Then use the debug if the alert shows a problem.

    Understood! Would you imagine that notice appearing on all pages of your dashboard, or only in the Jetpack menu?

    Thread Starter mwarbinek

    (@mwarbinek)

    Oh, my bad. I had assumed you had been in touch with us about this already, but I understand now that you were referring to other threads on these forums.

    I referred to other threads because I was researching for a solution, so when I read about checking which site is causing the issue, I decided to take that method and find out. Turns out it actually fixed the issue and because it worked, it appears that one caused a connection error that affected the other as well. So shutting down both (deactivating) and re-activating one at a time and checking it fully resolved it.

    That most likely indicates issues with both sites. It would be worth looking into this.

    Sure, but since both are working now, how would it be possible to find out? (Unless there is some log to refer to).

    How would we find out now?

    Understood! Would you imagine that notice appearing on all pages of your dashboard, or only in the Jetpack menu?

    Mmmm, normally a person is on the JetPack “lets connect” page when he connects to the WordPress account, then connects to WordPress by signing in, once signed in, it takes him back to the JetPack page, so when it takes him back to the page, then a suggestion that an alert says “Please wait till JetPack checks the Connection…”, then the result, “JetPack is Connected and Working Fine” if all works good including plugin list connection, or “JetPack connection failed – Plugins are not fetched – check (whatever)” if it fails.

    Of course I leave the actual dialogues to the JetPack Dev’s.

    That would alert the user to problems at the first site that causes a bad connection instead of maybe after the 100th, then having to go back through a long trouble shoot to find which one.

    Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    since both are working now, how would it be possible to find out? (Unless there is some log to refer to).

    How would we find out now?

    If this ever happens again, let us know!

    In the meantime, I took note about your ideas for better error messages, and we’ll see how to include them in a future version of the plugin.

    Thanks!

    Jetpack is worthless for updating plugins across many websites. I have approx 30 websites connected and have never been able to get it to work properly. Constant “Error fetching plugins” warnings for no less than 10 websites every time. I’ve done all your steps above. On 30+ sites, this is a never-ending revolving door of poor execution on Jetpack’s behalf. A complete waste of time, as I will now have to go uninstall Jetpack from all of my websites and find an alternative solution.

    Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    @drinxx If this happens for multiple sites of yours, and if those sites are hosted on the same server, the connection problem is most likely the same for all sites.

    If you want to send us more information about one of the sites, we’ll be happy to take a look! It should then give you all the information you need to fix the issue with all the sites on that server.

    Hi Jeremy. Thank you so much for the quick reply. As you can imagine, with so many sites, this has been like finding a needle in a haystack if the issue really does stem from a single website.

    I just ran a fresh scan of “All My Sites” and this is the error I received. Note… It is a random batch of websites each time.

    “Error fetching plugins on 5 sites: Youth Ministry Library, Surplus MRE – Meals Ready To Eat, No Credit Auto Rental, Learn Stock Trading, Hungry Doggy.”

    Those websites would be:
    ymlibrary.com
    surplusmre.com
    nocreditautorental.com
    learn-stock-trading.com
    hungrydoggy.com

    Also note that when the scan completes and shows 1 or 2 updates are available (when I know in actuality there are many more to be done), I get the following error flashed several times per each updatable plugin when pressing the “Update All Plugins” button…

    “An error occurred while updating the whatever plugin on whatever website.”

    Plugin Author Jeremy Herve

    (@jeherve)

    Jetpack Mechanic ??

    Thanks for the extra details.

    I seem to receive the same error for all 5 sites. Jetpack, like other plugins and services, uses the XML-RPC file to communicate with your site. Whenever you load a new page on WordPress.com, a new XML-RPC request is made to get information about a site. Depending on the page you’re one, it could be a request to get a list of posts, or to get a list of plugins for example.

    However, whenever we try to make a request to one of the sites above, we receive a 503 error in return. I ran some more tests, and it appears the responses are generated by the WordFence plugin. Here is an example of the response we get when trying to get information about your site via the XML-RPC file:

    <title>Your access to this site has been limited</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Your access to this site has been limited</h1>
<p>Your access to this service has been temporarily limited. Please try again in a few minutes. (HTTP response code 503)</p>
<p>Reason: <span style="color: #F00;">Accessed a banned URL.</span></p>
<p style="width: 600px;"><b>Important note for site admins: </b>If you are the administrator of this website note that your access has been limited because you broke one of the Wordfence blocking rules.
The reason your access was limited is: <b>"Accessed a banned URL."</b>.
<br /><br />
If this is a false positive, meaning that your access to your own site has been limited incorrectly, then you
will need to regain access to your site, go to the Wordfence "options" page, go to the section for Rate Limiting Rules and disable the rule that caused you to be blocked. For example,
if you were blocked because it was detected that you are a fake Google crawler, then disable the rule that blocks fake google crawlers. Or if you were blocked because you 
were accessing your site too quickly, then increase the number of accesses allowed per minute.
<br /><br />
If you're still having trouble, then simply disable the Wordfence advanced blocking and you will 
still benefit from the other security features that Wordfence provides.

    Do you happen to use a Wordfence blocking rule to block access to XML-RPC? If so, you’ll need to deactivate that rule so WordPress.com can use the file to communicate with your sites again.

    Let me know if it helps!

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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