locked out! And no solution works to fix the problem

Hi @andreapatro,

Sorry about your issue.

Although this plugin triggered your issue, I think the blocking itself would not be due to this plugin. Because:

1. Even you configured as it blocks yourself and saved changes, you would never be blocked but could see the warning message like:

This plugin has a mechanism to prevent locking yourself out.

2. After you deleted this plugin by FTP, this plugin could never work.

So I suspect your server’s firewall or something blocked you and I’d like to check your server’s environment.

A. Can I have the information (url is fine) about your hosting provider and your server (for example, is the server software apache or nginx)?

B. Could you check if your server has some firewall functions?

C. Could you provide a screenshot when you are blocked? Is the message “Sorry, your request cannot be accepted” which is the default message of this plugin?

D. Do you use caching plugin? If so, which plugin?

E. Could you provide me the url of your site? You can send it to me by email (tokkonopapa at yahoo.com).

Thanks for your cooperation.

Hi @andreapatro,

Additional info.

I checked your profile and found the url of your site. It returns “500 Internal Server Error” with blank page when I visit your site. This is not blocking but some error on your server.

So,

F. Could you get the error log of your server? This could be very helpful to resolve this issue.

G. Could you find .htaccess in /wp-content/plugins/ and /wp-content/themes? If yes, please save them into your PC for backup then remove them by your FTP.

Thanks a lot.

Hi @tokkonpapa,
I try to answer your questions below:
A. You already discovered the url
B. The server is managed by an ISP, it probably has some firewall functions but i think just standard functions that up to know never affected my website.
C. The behavior is different from firefox to Chrome. Firefox shows only a blank page, while Chrome shows this message (translated from italian) “the page <website> does not work, <website> cannot manage your request”
D. I have w3-total-cache plugin, after your message i tried to remove the cache plugin but it did not help
E. you already discovered the url
F. if you mean the error_log file under WP root directory there are no specific errors yesterdey. This are the last errors probably due to an attack to postie plugin. You can see it here below
[27-Apr-2017 12:45:23 UTC] Postie [error]: The username and password provided were not accepted for the POP3 server pop.monacobaviera.it on port 110
[27-Apr-2017 13:06:05 UTC] Postie [error]: The username and password provided were not accepted for the POP3 server pop.monacobaviera.it on port 110
[27-Apr-2017 13:11:40 UTC] Postie [error]: The username and password provided were not accepted for the POP3 server pop.monacobaviera.it on port 110
G. i have .htaccess only in the WP root directory.

Hope you can help me in some way.
Thank you very much,
Andrea

Hi Andrea,

Thank for clarifying my questions.

A. Good!
B. Then we should think about other causes at first.
C. I know. But your server returns “500 Internal Server Error“. You can open a developer tool and investigate network tab on Chrome like this:

This is typically caused by PHP error, insufficient memory, illegal .htaccess and so on.

D. OK, thanks.
E. Thanks.
F. Well, normally, the error_log is placed outside your document root (= outside your WordPress root).

OK, let me propose how to investigate the cause of this issue.

1. Assume that some plugin caused this issue (of course including mine). In this case, you can rename /wp-content/plugin to /wp-content/plugin.bak. Then you can login and find all the plugins are deactivated like this:

Then you can activate each plugin one by one.

2. Assume that something PHP files in WordPress directory were broken. In this case, PHP error would cause “500 Internal Server Error”. You can get WordPress debug log in your /wp-content/debug.log if you put the following snippet in your wp-config.php.

define('WP_DEBUG', true);

// https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Debugging_in_WordPress
if ( WP_DEBUG ) {
    define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); // output log into wp-content/debug.log
    define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false ); // not output to display
    @ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 ); // not output to browser
}

Could you check it?

3. There are some articles like “How to Fix the 500 Internal Server Error on Your WordPress Website“, I think the best way is to ask your ISP to help by accessing error logs that may contain more clues. For example, the administrator should be able to find out what was happened in the server. This may be the only way to solve some intermittent errors.

I’m sorry about your inconvenience, but I’d appreciate if you try 1. and 2.

Thanks.

Hi tokkonopapa, I’m not an expert in WP, anyway I tried the solution you suggest in your point F, and it workd! Thank you.
I renamed all plugin directory and the website worked again.
Then I have renamend one by one the plugin directories to the orginal name and reactivated.
I reactivated everything including your plugin and the website still works fine.
Now I tried to block a country but it seem not to work. I’ve blocked French IPs (FR) but wehn i try to access with a french IP, the website is still visible ??

Hi @andreapatro,

I reactivated everything including your plugin and the website still works fine.

I was relieved to hear that!

Now I tried to block a country but it seem not to work. I’ve blocked French IPs (FR) but wehn i try to access with a french IP, the website is still visible

Well, please confirm the followings:

1. Enable “Block by country” at “Public facing pages” in “Front-end target settings” section.

2. Clear your browser’s cookie even if you access to your site via some kind of VPN.

3. You use W3 Total Cache. Please refer to “Living with caching plugin” and check your configurations.

4. Test my site that can be accessed only from Japan: https://tokkono.cute.coocan.jp/blog/slow/

5. You have Google Adwards on your site. Please note “Problem With Google Adwords” which was reported by @stewratwebways.

Thanks.