Plugin causing: Error connecting to Database

I upgraded a website last night to WordPress 4.0 and iThemes Security from a version 3 to the newest version (4.4.13). Updated all my settings, same as I have on multiple other sites and everything was working, went to update another plugin (Black Studio TinyMCE Widget) and then the website stopped working. WordPress couldn’t connect to the database.

Tried to test script to see if the database server was having issues, but that connected properly.

Finally got access to my site by renaming the better-wp-security directory to force WordPress to deactivate the plugin.

Played around in the database, removing options from the options table, reactivating the plugin and seeing if it worked. Got the site working again after I removed the information from itsec_malware (a:2:{s:7:”api_key”;s:0:””;s:7:”enabled”;b:0;}) (I never turned on Malware scanning, so I was surprised this would make a difference)

Site was working again. Updated another plugin, it broke again. Removing the info from itsec_malware didn’t solve the problem this time though.

Any idea on what’s causing this, how I can resolve it?

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/better-wp-security/