Fatal error when Wordfence could not connect to servers

Hi Stuart,
Could you please let me know more details about this fatal error you get? are you running the latest stable version of WordPress or WordPress 4.6 RC1?

Yes, you can run traceroute noc1.wordfence.com and paste the results here.

Also, what do you get under (Wordfence > Diagnostics => Connectivity)?

Thanks.

Hi,

Although I did save that section of the debug log at the time, I can’t find it right now. I shall look again later.

The error showed as a fatal error with stack trace in Debug.log.

I am running 4.5.3. I’m unable to run a traceroute at the moment from my host as the tools are missing and I’m struggling to install.

However, Wordfence is working generally. This seems to have been a transient occurrence when the plugin could not reach your server, but it did not appear to be handled gracefully.

Sorry I don’t have the detail to hand right now.

Stuart

The way to test this is to have your localhost wordpress setup running, try it when internet is not connected.

This error shouldn’t keep you from seeing the site, or developing WordPress on the go.

I found the error message. Just to repeat – this is not causing me a problem as the loss of connectivity was a one off. I just wanted to let the developer know that the error is not being gracefully handled.

[27-Jul-2016 13:26:20 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'There was an error connecting to the the Wordfence scanning servers: Failed to connect to noc1.wordfence.com port 443: Connection timed out' in /wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wfAPI.php:81
Stack trace:
#0 /wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wfAPI.php(32): wfAPI->getURL('https://noc1.wo...', Array)
#1 /volume1/web/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wordfenceClass.php(174): wfAPI->call('ping_api_key')
#2 [internal function]: wordfence::dailyCron()
#3 /wp-includes/plugin.php(601): call_user_func_array('wordfence::dail...', Array)
#4 /wp-cron.php(117): do_action_ref_array('wordfence_daily...', Array)
#5 {main}
  thrown in /wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wfAPI.php on line 81

Thanks Stuart, as long as this was a one time only connection timeout, it maybe related to a temporary server-related issue, will mark this as resolved for now.

P.S. just in case you encountered this issue again (Failed to connect to noc1.wordfence.com port 443), you could turn off “Enable SSL Verification” option under (Wordfence > Diagnostics => Debugging Options).

Thanks.

With respect – I think you’re missing the issue. Should a plugin really have a fatal error which causes a stack trace in the event of a failure of internet connectivity?

It’s not like internet connectivity is 100% reliable.

Anyway – it’s your call – I just wanted to let you know.

Cheers