Having issues on some websites with 503 with wordfence installed

  • HI

    I’ve just noticed 5 of my clients with Wordfence installed are all running very badly slow, lagging etc sometimes. 503 errors. Then I ring hosting to see if they can rectify things. They keep saying high load issues. But not all clients are affected, mainly the websites with Wordfence.

    But I have other clients on the same server and the ones with NO Wordfence don’t have this issue.

    ONLY the sites with Wordfence. So I’m beginning to wonder what is causing this issue.

    Could you please advise as to what I have to look out for please to fix this issue.

    Thanks

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    I’m also seeing this in the error log for these client sites with Wordfence.

    PHP Warning: include_once(/home/ubutedes/public_html/domainname.com.au/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/wordfence.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/ubutedes/public_html/domainname.com.au/wp-settings.php on line 473
    [16-Jul-2024 14:48:37 UTC] PHP Warning: include_once(): Failed opening ‘/home/ubutedes/public_html/domainname.com.au/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/wordfence.php’ for inclusion (include_path=’.:/opt/alt/php74/usr/share/pear’) in /home/ubutedes/public_html/domainname.com.au/wp-settings.php on line 473

    Please advise what the issue is and HOW to fix it. This error could be causing the many 503 errors and very slow websites when I have Wordfence activated recently. Something is not right.

    Using PHP 7.4

    Thanks

    Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    Here is another error log from another site with Wordfence

    Similar error

    [16-Jul-2024 01:27:22 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required ‘/home/domainname/domainname.com.au/wordfence-waf.php’ (include_path=’.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php73/root/usr/share/pear’) in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 01:27:22 UTC] PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 01:27:22 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required ‘/home/domainname/domainname.com.au/wordfence-waf.php’ (include_path=’.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php73/root/usr/share/pear’) in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 01:27:22 UTC] PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 01:27:22 UTC] PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 01:27:22 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required ‘/home/domainname/domainname.com.au/wordfence-waf.php’ (include_path=’.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php73/root/usr/share/pear’) in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 13:04:56 UTC] PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 13:04:56 UTC] PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 13:04:56 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required ‘/home/domainname/domainname.com.au/wordfence-waf.php’ (include_path=’.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php73/root/usr/share/pear’) in Unknown on line 0
    [16-Jul-2024 13:49:07 UTC] PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent in /home/domainname/domainname.com.au/wp-includes/load.php on line 386

    Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    Now I’m getting Resource Limit Reached .. but I have no limit ..

    503 errors

    Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    Otherwise I’m going to have to uninstall Wordfence which I would prefer NOT to do , unless we can rectify the issue.

    Thanks in advance!

    Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi @kristinubute,

    The errors you’ve shown above accompanied by 503 errors certainly point to an incorrect path to wordfence-waf.php on these sites in their .htaccess or .user.ini. Now, these sites may have been working for you in the past but we have seen occasions when staging sites are copied to live, or in rarer cases hosts make changes to paths where this path is no longer correct.

    wordfence-waf.php should just need its file path to be fixed by optimizing the WAF again from our wizard in Wordfence > Firewall > Manage WAF. If you currently see a “REMOVE EXTENDED PROTECTION” button instead of “OPTIMIZE THE WORDFENCE FIREWALL”, then remove first. The paths in that file should be updated when you re-optimize the WAF again to fix the 503 errors.

    Many thanks,
    Peter.

    Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    Hi

    These client sites were moved to a new server 5 weeks ago.

    Wordfence was only installed on these client sites a week after being on the new server. Wordfence was never installed on these clients sites before the move to the new server.

    I will try your settings you have suggested and I will let you know.

    Thanks

    Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    They are only new clients with Wordfence on this new server only.

    Thread Starter kristinubute

    (@kristinubute)

    But if I cannot login to the backend because of the constant 503 error, HOW then can I edit and fix this issue ?

    Can I edit a file via File Manager and what am I editing and where ?

    Please advise urgently as I have 3 client sites down with that same issue ..

    As I keep getting this , I cannot login to the backend either!

    Service Unavailable

    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

    Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

    Thanks

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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