Ghost of Plugin Continues to Send Notifications

Hi @p2000fixthis

I hope you are doing well.

I checked your site URL but couldn’t find it registered ou our HUB so it seems you are using the local scan.

In case the plugin is no longer installed it shouldn’t trigger any notification, but can you please install WP Control https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-crontrol/ and then check for any cronjob from Broken Link Checker?

Alternatively you can reinstall the plugin and try disabling the option: https://monosnap.com/file/TbYPBmbq1rwbV2r1sc0I1LLbwrQBYD

About the wrong links, wondering if you give a try in the Cloud version and see if would report the same links?

Best Regards
Patrick Freitas

UPDATE: Logged into CPanel, there were no CRON scripts running. Another email notice arrived today. Will double-check with hosting vendor that some backup isn’t running somewhere. Otherwise, will try the re-install/delete path.

Hello @p2000fixthis ,

Is there any update from your hosting provider?

kind regards,
Kasia

Nothing from the provider. There are no CRON processes listed in CPANEL, there are no processes listed from WP Control. I am still getting an erroneous email every day. I have yet to try reinstalling the broken link checker…but I’m afraid ??

Note: there ARE processes visible from WP Control, but I do not recognize anything as WPMU or Broken Link Checker. If it would be listed as something else what might that be?

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by p2000fixthis.

Hi @p2000fixthis

Thank you for update!

Note: there ARE processes visible from WP Control, but I do not recognize anything as WPMU or Broken Link Checker. If it would be listed as something else what might that be?

Please go to the “Tools -> Cron Events” page in your site’s back-end type-in this in search box there:

blc_

Then hit “enter” key or just use “Search Hook Name” button and it should bring the list. With plugin active there should be three items returned; with plugin disabled there should be none but if there are any – it may be the culprit.

Especially, look for the “blc_cron_email_notifications” one. If it’s there you can simply hit “Delete” option there and it should do the trick.

If nothing like that comes up in this search, it’s possible that some “overdue” notifications are actually stuck “somewhere” in e-mail queue instead – but that would be a bit more tricky to identify as it may be on site or on server (server’s mailing system) actually. Are you using any SMTP plugin on site by any chance (and if yes, what is it)?

Kind regards,
Adam

The only CRON processes running are WordPress CORE processes which were previously mentioned and are seen from the WP Control plugin. The CRON processes I can see from CPANEL (at GoDaddy) do not indicate anything running. So, I re-installed Broken Link Checker and used the “nuclear option” Forced Recheck.

As I was typing this the Broken Link Checker came back with 43 reported broken links-HOWEVER, the report is incorrect, the links are not broken if https is used instead of http. Perhaps Broken Link Checker is incompatible with the Really Simple SSL plugin.

Anyway, I have deactivated the Broken Link Checker plugin and hope that stops the flawed notifications I am receiving every day.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by p2000fixthis.

Hi @p2000fixthis

As for the broken links reported: it doesn’t really have much to do with Really Simple SSL plugin. It’s about the HTTP response (as in HTTP status) that plugin gets when trying to fetch the URL.

Since you deactivated the plugin already, you won’t see it but on the list of broken links it should be showing the HTTP status, like e.g. 404, 403, 500 or other. This explains why it considers link broken. For example, if there is a link referred via http protocol while actual page is served via https over SSL – one of the common reasons is lack of redirect. But it may also be something completely different, for example CloudFlare or some firewall rejecting check requests.

But that’s just a general information since without knowing actual reported URLs and reported HTTP status codes for them we can’t really tell much more.

As for the notifications: what you did – I would expect it to fix that notification issues so let’s see how it goes. If it still doesn’t solve it, please update us and we’ll see what to check and do next.

Kind regards,
Adam

To be clear, there is an executable, somewhere, that is not visible to me from WordPress or CPANEL. I continue to receive daily emails that , although are different each day, are equally useless. I need help to turn this thing off. Can you provide more detailed information to hunt down this executable and get rid of it? I am willing to share what-ever information you require.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by p2000fixthis.

Hi @p2000fixthis,

Possible to share a screenshot of the content of emails that you get, so that we could have a better idea to see what could be suggested further?

Could you please confirm the version of BLC that you are currently running? Also did you try disabling the following option as instructed before?
https://monosnap.com/file/TbYPBmbq1rwbV2r1sc0I1LLbwrQBYD

Does the email get sent even after disabling the above setting?

If the emails are getting sent even with the above setting disabled, then another possibility is it might be getting sent from a different server, do you have any staging sites? Maybe the emails are getting sent from a staging?

Could you also please enable a plugin like Email Logging, which should keep track of what all emails are getting sent from your website. This should help in giving a better idea too.

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/tags/email-log/

Looking forward to your response.

Kind Regards,

Nithin

I have been sending replies to your email, just checking, are you getting them?

Hi @p2000fixthis,

I am afraid, we won’t receive responses to the notification emails for this forum topic. Could you please respond with more details directly on this topic?

Kind Regards,
Nebu John

In Summary, there is a hidden executable still operating and sending bogus broken link notifications. (Just as a reminder, the website in question is all SSL, Broken Link Checker is not noticing that.)

The current plugins: the Broken Link Check has been disabled and all cache cleared for days.
https://monosnap.com/file/dAIH0iDDiDy5NNe9TIRkt7gZqRleya

Email from Jan 10:
https://monosnap.com/file/7m4nGeWbZKpbU3gJFBTGHFX6EEheQG

Email from Yesterday @ 6:08 AM:
https://monosnap.com/file/xddy9c3XBRpJGqAWtVHF7kSeia6roE

Attempting to use the “see all broken links” results in a 404 error. If I modify the URL to HTTPS this is the error message I get:
https://monosnap.com/file/XQXlBg7ksYkJVwEvQEAM1ZhR2re8h7

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by p2000fixthis.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by p2000fixthis.

Just got another one. Plugin remains as disabled.

https://monosnap.com/file/tXTHwjQybIDjLLVo2zPwZYsw9Bl32F

Hello @p2000fixthis,

Thank you for the details, and I’m sorry to hear the issue persists.

In Summary, there is a hidden executable still operating and sending bogus broken link notifications. (Just as a reminder, the website in question is all SSL, Broken Link Checker is not noticing that.)

Please note, that all BLC files are publicly available, and it doesn’t install anything hidden. The issue doesn’t seem to be caused by the plugin itself, since it’s not active on the site.

On the other hand, this might be related to how both the regular and secure site versions work simultaneously on the server. Since the regular http version still loads, and the emails are pointing to it, then it seems that the http version may be running from a different folder, and still working alongside the https version.

In this case BLC may be active and sending those emails from the http version of the site which is still working.

Could you please check with your hosting provider, if they can spot the old http site instance still running separately. They may also have to restart the server and running processes.

Best Regards,
Dmytro

I spent an hour with GoDaddy support this evening, they report the following:

“As we review new.nortex.org it does not have Mixed content HTTP instead of HTTPS. You need to get back to the plugin support to inform them that no mixed content for the site and they need to review the plugin.”