Fatal error message, can't change Shield settings

What is the exact version of Shield that you have?

5.4.2

Could you try disabling 1 module/main feature at a time until you find the error disappears. Then reactivate the module to confirm, please?

Results:

Global Plugin On/Off: after save, went to white page with error message. Refreshed the page and clicked continue on the “content form resubmission” dialog box that appeared. The page reloaded and all features of the plugin were deactivated, but the error message remains.

Turning the global plugin switch on again works fine – no white screen/error message page, all modules reactivated, but the error message still displays at the bottom.

All other modules: trying to save any changes results in the white screen with error message. Reloading the page and resubmitting the form has no effect. When I manually return to the dashboard page, there is a “Shield options have been updated” message, but no changes have been made to the settings.

The Security Admin and HTTP Headers modules were already switched off when I noticed the issue. Before I contacted you, I was able to switch off the Hack Protection module after several attempts, but the error message didn’t go away.

Trying to reactivate any individual module leads to the same white screen with error message.

Can you try using the forceoff file as outlined here:
https://icontrolwp.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/3000000959

This will knock the “processing” of the modules, while keeping the plugin active. This will allow you to change settings, as suggested above, and hopefully not incur any errors that are happening. The thing I need to find out is the actual underlying module + setting that might be leading to this.

Also, it might not be the plugin alone, but a conflict with another plugin. This will hopefully become more apparent once we ascertain the actual problem module.

Thanks!

I uploaded the forceOff file. The “Warning- Shield is not currently running” message is displayed, but I’m still getting the same results: the global on/off switch works, but has no effect on the error message. All attempts to turn off individual modules results in the white error message screen.

I’ve tried deactivating the other plugins I’m using to identify a conflict, but the error message stays with every combination of active plugins that includes Shield, even if Shield is the only active plugin.

Here are the other plugins I’m using on the site:
Advanced Custom Fields
Akismet
Email Address Encoder

I’ve still got “forceoff” loaded, and I’ve been able to turn off all the individual modules without triggering the white error screen except Firewall and Audit Trail.

So to recap:

• global plugin on/off is OFF
• all modules are OFF except Firewall and Audit Trail
• trying to turn off Firewall and/or Audit Trail triggers white error page with the same fatal error text as above (though sometimes the line number has been 1209 instead of 1129)
• fatal error message text still appears at the bottom of all pages, front-end and dashboard

I’m building in an ability to reset a plugin back to its default settings – that is, to clean out the settings.

I have this already, actually, and it might be worth a try, but what I don’t have is a full rebuild of any database tables. Let’s try it with what currently exists in the plugin – reset to default options.

The article that explains this is here:
https://icontrolwp.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/3000040181-how-to-reset-the-plugin-to-default-settings

Give this a shot for now. I’m hopefully set to release a plugin upgrade this week and the ‘reset’ will include the db extras I’ve outlined.

That did it. No error message, and everything seems to be working fine so far.

Thanks for your help and patience with this. If I can provide any other useful info, let me know.