Error loading signatures in Anti-Malware feature

Hi,

Did you receive the error message immediately after clicking on the ‘Scan System’ button or only after a while? If you received it immediately, try to reload the page.
Normally, this message is sent if, after 10 seconds, NinjaFirewall was unable to parse all signatures.
The signatures aren’t missing, though.

I’m having the same problem.

Hey! My url was with Status Whois “waiting propagation”. Now status “published” and Anti-Malware run OK. thanks

Same problem here

Received the error message "Error: unable to load signatures (#2)"

When I look into the file

ninjafirewall/lib/fw_malwarescan.php

$msc_tot_sigs = $nfw_['log_dir'] . '/cache/malscan_tot.sigs';
        $msc_end = $nfw_['log_dir'] . '/cache/malscan.end';
        $msc_count = $nfw_['log_dir'] . '/cache/malscan.count';
        $msc_lock = $nfw_['log_dir'] . '/cache/malscan.lock';
        $msc_res = $nfw_['log_dir'] . '/cache/malscan.res';

There should be a cache directory with the signatures file. Well I do have a general wordpress cache directory, no sig file there. So am I missing something?

For me, I see the “Loading” message with the animated dots and after a few seconds, I get the “Error: unable to load signatures (#2)” message.

If this is due to a signature parsing issue, how can I correct it? I haven’t done anything except upgrade NinjaFirewall and tried to do the scan.

Thanks!

Peace…

There should be a cache directory with the signatures file.

The signatures file is in the “/lib/share/” folder.
If the file was missing, you’d see a warning in the “Anti-Malware” page.
Make sure it is 437,470 bytes (MD5: af0ed7725369cf14e3e77bda2d4b7492).

I see the “Loading” message with the animated dots and after a few seconds, I get the “Error: unable to load signatures (#2)” message.

Can you check if you have any JavaScript error? Turn on your browser JS console (usually CTRL + Shift + J) and then click on the ‘Scan System’ button.

Maybe I found the issue: https://plugins.trac.www.ads-software.com/browser/ninjafirewall/tags/3.2.1/lib/nf_sub_malwarescan.php#L743

There is a trailing ‘8’ on that line:

var get_loaded_signatures = function () {8

Can you edit the /lib/nf_sub_malwarescan.php and remove that ‘8’, then try again?
Amazingly, it does not throw any error with my versions of Firefox and Chrome. Which browser are you using?

Using the latest version of ninjafirewall now where the trailing 8 is gone. Copied over the sigs.txt file to the nfwlog/sigs folder in wp-content. Still the same error Error: unable to load signatures (#2) Even tried when the sigs.txt file is in the nfwlog/cache folder but no luck either.

All signatures in the /nfwlog/sigs/ folder must have a .sig extension. See https://blog.nintechnet.com/adding-your-own-signatures-to-ninjafirewall-anti-malware/ (scroll down to “Loading the signatures”).
Try to copy it to /nfwlog/sigs/sigs.sig or /nfwlog/sigs/whatever.sig.

Make sure it is not corrupted and that it is 437,585 bytes exactly if you have NinjaFirewall v3.2.2 which was released today.

I gave the signatures file a .sig extension. No luck. When I push the scan button, the same Error: unable to load signatures (#2) arises

I don’t think there is any bug here, or at least I could not find any.
The JS code wait for 10 seconds and will output that error message. That would mean that your server needs more that 10 seconds to load the signatures? Even 2 seconds would be too much.
You can check if that is the issue by editing the /lib/nf_sub_malwarescan.php script, line 823:

if ( ++loop < 5 ) {

Replace it with:

if ( ++loop < 10 ) {

It will wait up to 20 seconds.
Don’t forget to reload the “Anti-Malware” page before running another scan.

Still no luck

When pushing the Scan button I can see in the error log

POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php HTTP/1.1" 404 20 "wp-admin/admin.php?page=nfsubmalwarescan

10 times when I adjust the time to 10 sec in the loop of your script.

I do not think time is the problem, the problem looks like some file(s) which should be loaded are not found. This not only happens in 1 server or wordpress installation, but about 10 different installations on 3 different servers, so there is no server issue here.

When I look in your script there are some definitions:

define('MSC_TOT_SIGS', NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan_tot.sigs' );
define('MSC_END', NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan.end' );
define('MSC_COUNT', NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan.count' );
define('MSC_LOCK', NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan.lock' );
define('MSC_RES', NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan.res' );
define('MSC_SCAN_TIME', NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan_time.php' );
define('MSC_LMD_SIGS', __DIR__ . '/share/sigs.txt' );
define('MSC_MAXMEM',NFW_LOG_DIR . '/nfwlog/cache/malscan.mem' );

All the files in the cache directory are not in my cache folder. Maybe there is a problem there? or something similar, looks like file not found problem

The 404 is returned by the firewall (not admin-ajax.php, although it may look like it is), when it is unable to fetch the number of loaded signatures.
All files you mentioned, except /share/sigs.txt, are created when the scan is running and deleted afterwards so it is normal you don’t see them.

Another possible issue is that the /nfwlog/ and /nfwlog/cache/ folders are not writable. That would prevent the firewall from building and loading the signatures list.
You can check from the “NinjaFirewall > Overview” menu if there is any error/warning regarding folders permissions.

Ok about the firewall and files in the cache folder.

The /nfwlog/ and /nfwlog/cache are both owned by the web user and fully writable, so there’s no problem.

That’s odd because it really looks like you have a restriction somewhere.
Which hosting company are you using?

Do you see any other files in the /nfwlog/cache/ folder (e.g., nfdbhash.1.php, nfilecheck_diff.php etc)?

Does the Live Log feature works as expected?