Not Acceptable message from Bluehost

  • Hi!
    I frequently use your plugin to great success on my clients’ sites.

    However, I have a client on Bluehost and when I go to validate with Google, I get the dreaded…
    “Not Acceptable!
    An appropriate representation of the requested resource could not be found on this server. This error was generated by Mod_Security.”

    Here’s the Mod_Security error message (URL disguised)

    ModSecurity: Access denied with code 406 (phase 2). Match of “beginsWith https://%{SERVER_NAME}/” against “MATCHED_VAR” required. [file “/etc/httpd/modsecurity.d/10_asl_rules.conf”] [line “1974”] [id “340595”] [rev “16”] [msg “Remote File Injection attempt in ARGS”] [severity “WARNING”] [hostname “website-url.com”] [uri “/wordpress/wp-admin/options-general.php”] [unique_id “XA2YWkrc220AAioT6c8AAABH”]

    (I’m not sure why the “beginsWith https://” is http… The site, the plugin settings, Google API, etc. settings are all set up properly with https://)

    While searching the web on the problem, there’s anecdotal evidence of getting Bluehost to address the problem via turning off a Mod_Security rule or two and/or whitelisting the website IP address (I think).

    I have tried contacting Bluehost (so far only once) and was stonewalled, with the tech saying “It’s shared server, we can’t make a change for you without affecting everyone on the server”.

    I can’t turn off Mod_Security in the .htaccess, but I wonder if I could turn off a rule or whitelist an IP in .htaccess.

    Normally, I would just use an email address on the website server and be done with it. But the client is using Google Suite, so that the MX settings have been changed… Is there any way to leverage the site’s MX being set up for Google?

    I hope that you can send some joy my way and not have to switch to a different plugin for SMTP… Supposedly there are a couple that will allow the use of the Google API on Bluehost.

    Thanks!

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  • +1 – I’m having the same problem, also on Bluehost/Hostmonster. Following this topic for replies.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by jcmmediagroup.
    Plugin Author Slava Abakumov

    (@slaffik)

    Hi @kendawes

    Thanks for a detailed report.
    You can ask them to add the URL that is used there (https://mail.google.com/) to a whitelist in MATCHED_VAR, so when the mod_security will check that, it will pass.
    This is because when you are coming back from Google the URL contains a &scope=https://mail.google.com/ in it, which does not match with your domain.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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