popular-posts returns error 403 and rest_cookie_invalid_nonce code in json

Hi @appleandpear,

Usually the reason this happens is either you have a caching plugin installed on your site and the settings you’re using with it are a bit too aggressive (see FAQ Is WordPress Popular Posts compatible with caching plugins?, second bullet), or you have a firewall/security plugin that’s interfering with WPP’s REST API calls (see FAQ Is WordPress Popular Posts compatible with security / firewall plugins?), or a combination of both.

Please review these two FAQs and adjust your settings accordingly to make sure WordPress Popular Posts can keep track of your pageviews.

If none of the FAQs helped, please go to Settings > WordPress Popular Posts > Tools, take a screenshot of your Debug screen, upload the screenshot somewhere (like https://prnt.sc/ or https://postimages.org/), and share the URL here so I can have a look.

Let me know if you have any questions, ok?

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Hector Cabrera. Reason: Added extra clarification

Thanks @hcabrera for prompt reply. I’ve checked the cache plugin (I’m using LiteCache Speed) and it looks that I have set it up properly. I read the firewall plugins FAQ and it is not suitable for me because I’m not using any.

So… Please find attached screenshot of WPP Debug tab here: https://prnt.sc/vlqwqx

Thanks for the screenshot, @appleandpear.

At first glance nothing stands out from your plugin list except for LiteSpeed Cache so I’m inclined to think that that’s what’s causing the issue. Are you 100% sure that the settings you’re using with LSC are adequate for it to work with WPP? How often is it set up to rebuild its cache?

@hcabrera thanks for investigation. About LSC, well… I’ve checked my problem again with Cache disabled (I have disabled cache in LSC settings), so all cached entries for this site has been purged. After refreshing the website the problem still exists. So I wonder is the LSC and its settings may be causing the issue.

Anyway replying to your question – the LSC settings is now set up as follows:
– default public cache TTL = 604800 sec
– default main page TTL = 604800 sec
– default rest TTL = 86400 sec (now I have set it up as 86400, earlier it was 604800 sec).

604800 seconds are 7 days. You want to set each TTL to 86400 seconds (1 day).

Remember to clear LSC’s cache after applying this change (assuming it doesn’t do this automatically for you) then check again.

I’ve changed each TTL to 86400, cleared cache, cleared web browser all data and nothing helped. But found something new. I noticed that this problem starts when I add an item into the cart on my WooCommerce shop.
Do You have any ideas or should I talk with WooCommerce support team?

There was a problem some months ago with WooCommerce that caused this exact same problem (the issue seemed related to a specific WC plugin, the PayPal Gateway plugin) but AFAIK this was resolved by recent updates.

Before you reach out to the WooCommerce team, it might be a good idea to set up a staging site (assuming you don’t have one already) and then install the Health and Troubleshooting plugin.

Once the Health and Troubleshooting plugin is active, head to Tools > Site Health > Troubleshooting and then select Enable Troubleshooting Mode. This will allow you to control which theme and plugins are enabled during the troubleshoot session.

Go to Plugins and click the Enable while Troubleshooting link under WordPress Popular Posts so you can test this plugin in Troubleshooting mode, then visit any of your posts/pages and check whether WPP was able to track your visit normally. If it did, enable another plugin and repeat until WPP stops tracking views. That should give you a hint on what the problem(s) might be.

I’ve created staging site, installed Health and Troubleshooting plugin, enabled Troubleshooting Mode, then on Plugins the “Enable while Troubleshooting” link under WordPress Popular Posts I see that it is not available ??

https://prnt.sc/vm88gr

Stranger things

Try using the Troubleshooting Mode menu located at the top bar, you should be able to activate WPP from there as well:

Hi @appleandpear,

Out of curiosity I checked your site just now and it seems WordPress Popular Posts is working normally now. Were you able to figure out what was causing the problem?

Hi @hcabrera

Well, the WPP still generating issue on REST query but only when visitor add some item from WooCommerce shop into the cart (as I mentioned here https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/popular-posts-returns-error-403-and-rest_cookie_invalid_nonce-code-in-json/#post-13681181).

I didn’t figured out the problem yet. I was tried out to use the Troubleshooting Mode menu located at the top bar to activate WPP, but this wasn’t worked too. So I take a brake to investigation and didn’t reply to Your previous post yet.

My online store is closed so You can’t check it there right now.

Hi @appleandpear,

I was able to reproduce the issue with a clean WordPress setup with only WPP and WooCommerce enabled. I documented the problem on WooCommerce’s GitHub Issue Tracker: WooCommerce breaks other plugin’s ability to send POST requests to REST API (rest_cookie_invalid_nonce). Let’s hope the WC team can help us figure out what’s going on.

Thanks for Your help, @hcabrera

Hey @appleandpear, @amandabandb, and @artandhome. Happy New Year!

So I thought you may be interested: someone posted a potential fix for the WC issue on their issue tracker. I tested just now it and it works: WordPress Popular Posts is able to track visits normally with that fix, although personally I’m not entirely sure that’s the way WC will want to handle it. We’ll have to wait and see.

If you’re willing to experiment, I can provide some more specific instructions so you can try this out as well (the commenter left out some details that are obvious to people more experienced with WordPress development in general but that others might struggle a bit to follow.)

That’s all for now. Stay safe!

Quick update for those interested (and for readers stumbling upon this topic in the future): the WooCommerce team has finally fixed this.

Please keep an eye on WC’s changelog and make sure to update as soon as the patch is officially released.