Latest Update Locks Out Customers

Hello @rush_woman and thanks for reaching out!

If you check your Tools > Live Traffic, what is the reason specified for these users getting locked out? Do you use any membership plugins?

Can you send a diagnostic report to wftest @ wordfence . com? You can find the link to do so at the top of the Wordfence Tools > Diagnostics page. Then click on “Send Report by Email”. Please add your forum username where indicated and respond here after you have sent it.

Thanks!

Hello @wfadam:

I have emailed the report as requested. I also have a screenshot of the error page customers are being sent to. I will email that separately.

Thank you.

Thanks for sending both of those @rush_woman

If you could check your Tools > Live Traffic for any of these blocks, click on it to see what the reason for the block is. If you could screenshot that for me, I might be able to see why these blocks are happening. Usually, a 503 is because of incorrect logins or a manual block that was set.

Also, when reviewing your diagnostic, I noticed that your firewall was not optimized, which might cause some other issues. Head over to your Firewall page and click “Optimize the Firewall” and select the FASTCGI preset in the wizard. Just follow the steps to completion and you should see 84% for your Firewall.

Let me know what you find!

Thanks!

@wfadam — Thanks for getting back to me. That 503 screenshot was from ME logging in — I have not blocked myself or any traffic in or near my state. Nothing shows on the Live Traffic for that lockout.

I attempted to login using another computer — locked me out, nothing shows on the Live Traffic that I even attempted a login, thus, nothing to suggest why it locked me out.

Suggestions? thank you.

I will check the firewall settings as you suggested.

Thank you.

If you’re being locked out, let’s disable wordfence so you can get logged in and we can figure out what is happening.

I’m happy to provide you with instructions on how to get back into your site. Follow these steps:

• Please use FTP/SFTP — or any file manager your web host provides via their administration panel.
• Look inside the /wp-content/plugins/ directory and rename the wordfence directory to wordfence.bak.
• Once you have logged in to your WordPress admin you can name the folder back to wordfence again.
• Refresh your dashboard and you should be able to see Wordfence Active again. If not, go to the Plugins page and Activate it.

Once you get in, we can check to see the block reasons in your Firewall > Blocking page.

Thanks!

I have it set to not log the Admin so that might be why not logging my lockouts.

It should hold the IP block in the Firewall > Blocking page if you filter “lockout”. You could also check your Tools > Live Traffic to see if your IP block is listed there.

Let me know what you find!

Thanks!

to reply to your question, nothing shows under the Firewall >Blocking for locking me out.

However, I may have isolated the issue — maybe. Earlier this week, this site was migrated from another, newer site where everything continues to work fine.

On this site with the issue — it looks like Wordfence may only be blocking OLD, transferred users on the frontend. With Wordfence active, I can create new accounts and login, no problem. But when I go to login with a transferred account, poof! 503 error. I deactive Wordfence, and I can login with a transferred account.

Perhaps this is helpful. Thanks.

It might be a good idea to delete the tables and see if that resolves the issue.

You can backup your Wordfence settings via the Export option. Navigate to Wordfence > Tools > Import/Export Options and click Export. You can also take note of the current Whitelisted URLs you have in Wordfence > Firewall > All Firewall Options > Whitelisted URLs as these are NOT included in the Import/Export, and will be lost during the re-install.
Here is what is exported: https://www.wordfence.com/help/tools/import-export/
During the export, you will be given a long string of text. Keep this safe, you’ll need it in a few minutes.

After that, enable the option to Delete Wordfence tables and data on deactivation in All Options > General Wordfence Options. You will want to remember to disable this after you reinstall Wordfence again.

After you enable that option, you can deactivate Wordfence from the Plugins area of your site, then delete it. Next, from the plugins area, search for and re-install Wordfence like normal.

It will be like setting Wordfence up for the first time. You will need to enter an email address, and then go into Tools > Import/Export Options and paste that string of text into the Import Wordfence Options field and click the button there.

The firewall will be in Learning Mode by default for 7 days. I would recommend switching this to Enabled and Protected as soon as possible.

Let’s see if this resolves your issue.

Thanks!

Thank you, I will follow your suggestions shortly and see how it goes. If my isolation conclusion is correct, it sounds like that should work. Will let you know. Thank you again.

It seems logical but not everything always works out that way.

Let me know what you find!

Thanks again!

lol Right. Okay, when I went to copy the export settings, I received a curl 7 error. So I went and checked the outgoing connections — found one Wordfence connection was being blocked. I authorized that outgoing link and now everything seems to be working.

So thank you for all that help and because of your instructions (and my guess), looks like the issue has been found and resolved. If any others show up, I shall make a fresh post.

Again, thank you for all the help. I learned a lot and I am keeping your instructions in case a user is unable to log in. I will execute them if that happens.

Best wishes.

Great news! I am glad you could find the issue!

Let us know if you need anything else!

Thanks again!