Wordfence is causing site problems

same here. I had to disable and remove wordfense and change to iThemes Security until hopefully the plugin support figures it out.

Okay, weird. the problem must be fairly new then. But thanks for your reply. ??

Hey @waveout,

Can you please elaborate on what’s happening? Can you please share screenshots of any errors?

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Gerroald

I’m getting a fatal error (Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error) when trying to reactivate Wordfence – not sure if this is related to what others are experiencing. Has there been an update today?

Hey @garyjh28,

There has not been an update today, though it’s quite possible that it is the same issue that others are experiencing.

Can you please share your system/server information including your PHP resources found in WordPress > Health Check?

Thanks,

Gerroald

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by WFGerroald.

Hi @wfgerald ,

I’ve been able to fix this by uninstalling WF and then use the WF Assistant to delete the WF tables and data.

I’ve sent a diagnostics report via WF with my forum username.

Details are:
### wp-core ###

version: 5.4.1
site_language: en_GB
user_language: en_GB
timezone: +00:00
permalink: /%postname%/
https_status: true
user_registration: 0
default_comment_status: open
multisite: false
user_count: 540
dotorg_communication: true

### wp-paths-sizes ###

advanced-cache.php: true

### wp-active-theme ###

parent_theme: Extra (Extra)
theme_features: custom-background, automatic-feed-links, post-thumbnails, title-tag, et-post-formats, et_widget_areas, html5, lifterlms-sidebars, widgets, menus

### wp-parent-theme ###

name: Extra (Extra)
version: 4.4.8
author: Elegant Themes
author_website: https://www.elegantthemes.com

### wp-themes-inactive (1) ###

Twenty Seventeen: version: 2.3, author: the WordPress team

### wp-mu-plugins (1) ###

installatron_hide_status_test.php: author: (undefined), version: (undefined)

### wp-plugins-active (36) ###

Advanced Comment Form: version: 1.2.0, author: Thomas Maier
Akismet Anti-Spam: version: 4.1.6, author: Automattic
Authors List: version: 1.1.3, author: WPKube
Cache Enabler: version: 1.3.5, author: KeyCDN
CDN Enabler: version: 1.0.9, author: KeyCDN
Colorlib Login Customizer: version: 1.2.96, author: Colorlib
Contact Form 7: version: 5.1.9, author: Takayuki Miyoshi
Divi/Extra Layout Injector: version: 3.1, author: Sean Barton – Tortoise IT
Easy Username Updater: version: 1.0.4, author: Yogesh C. Pant
Enable Gzip Compression: version: 1.0.3, author: Moki-Moki Ios
Flamingo: version: 2.1.1, author: Takayuki Miyoshi
Header Footer Code Manager: version: 1.1.7, author: 99robots
i2SDK: version: 3.99, author: David Bullock
Loco Translate: version: 2.4.0, author: Tim Whitlock
Memberium: version: 2.171, author: David Bullock
Menu Items Visibility Control: version: 0.3.9, author: Hassan Derakhshandeh
Monarch Plugin: version: 1.4.12, author: Elegant Themes
PublishPress Authors Pro: version: 3.3.1, author: PublishPress
PublishPress Checklists Pro: version: 2.1.0, author: PublishPress
PublishPress Pro: version: 2.0.6, author: PublishPress
PublishPress Revisions Pro: version: 2.3.5, author: PublishPress
Redirection: version: 4.8, author: John Godley
Shortcode in Menus: version: 3.5, author: Gagan Deep Singh
ShortPixel Image Optimizer: version: 4.19.2, author: ShortPixel
Term and Category Based Posts Widget: version: 4.8.1, author: TipTopPress
UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore: version: 2.16.26.24, author: UpdraftPlus.Com, DavidAnderson
URL Params: version: 2.2, author: Jeremy B. Shapiro
User Menus: version: 1.2.3, author: Code Atlantic
User Role Editor: version: 4.55.1, author: Vladimir Garagulya
Wordfence Assistant: version: 1.0.7, author: Wordfence
Wordfence Security: version: 7.4.7, author: Wordfence
WP HTML Mail: version: 3.0, author: Hannes Etzelstorfer // codemiq
WP Mail SMTP: version: 2.1.1, author: WPForms
WP System Info: version: 1.3, author: Nurul Amin
WP User Avatar: version: 2.2.6, author: ProfilePress
Yoast SEO: version: 14.3, author: Team Yoast

### wp-plugins-inactive (8) ###

Autoptimize: version: 2.7.3, author: Frank Goossens (futtta)
Infusionsoft Landing Pages: version: 1.3, author: Infusionsoft & David Bullock
Infusionsoft Official Opt-in Forms: version: 1.0.5, author: Infusionsoft
Jetpack by WordPress.com: version: 8.6.1, author: Automattic
PublishPress Permissions Pro: version: 3.1.6, author: PublishPress
Regenerate Thumbnails Advanced: version: 2.3.0, author: ShortPixel
Resize Image After Upload: version: 1.8.6, author: ShortPixel
SeedProd Coming Soon Page Pro: version: 5.12.5, author: SeedProd

### wp-media ###

image_editor: WP_Image_Editor_Imagick
imagick_module_version: 1690
imagemagick_version: ImageMagick 6.9.10-68 Q16 x86_64 2020-04-01 https://imagemagick.org
imagick_limits:
imagick::RESOURCETYPE_AREA: 31 GB
imagick::RESOURCETYPE_DISK: 9.2233720368548E+18
imagick::RESOURCETYPE_FILE: 786432
imagick::RESOURCETYPE_MAP: 31 GB
imagick::RESOURCETYPE_MEMORY: 16 GB
imagick::RESOURCETYPE_THREAD: 6
gd_version: bundled (2.1.0 compatible)
ghostscript_version: unknown

### wp-server ###

server_architecture: Linux 3.10.0-957.21.2.el7.x86_64 x86_64
httpd_software: Apache
php_version: 7.2.29 64bit
php_sapi: fpm-fcgi
max_input_variables: 3000
time_limit: 300
memory_limit: 256M
max_input_time: 600
upload_max_size: 128M
php_post_max_size: 128M
curl_version: 7.69.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1f
suhosin: false
imagick_availability: true
htaccess_extra_rules: true

### wp-database ###

extension: mysqli
server_version: 10.2.31-MariaDB

### wp-constants ###

WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT: 256M
WP_DEBUG: false
WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY: true
WP_DEBUG_LOG: false
SCRIPT_DEBUG: false
WP_CACHE: true
CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS: undefined
COMPRESS_SCRIPTS: undefined
COMPRESS_CSS: undefined
WP_LOCAL_DEV: undefined
DB_CHARSET: utf8
DB_COLLATE: undefined

### wp-filesystem ###

wordpress: writable
wp-content: writable
uploads: writable
plugins: writable
themes: writable
mu-plugins: writable

Hi,
I don’t think i have to create a new topic.
WF crashed my website today.

I’ve disabled the extension but i hope you can fix this

Hi, me too. I updated it and it broke the site. I had to remove the plugin for the site to come back up. I hope it can be fixed too!

Hey @wfgerald

The error that I could see was “Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 503 (Service Unavailable)” on my site.

@garyjh28 good call on the wf assistant!

I was having same issue and solved it with:

1. uninstall wordfence
2. install wordfence assistant
3. click the uninstall all tables and data button
4. click the uninstall firewall button
5. reinstall wordfence
6. go through normal setup procedure

Same Problem – I have multiple sites and was running WordFence for a couple of years. Really liked it and a few ways it was showing attacks etc… however… I would appreciate it not breaking my site when I am fixing to leave on vacation and having to install another plugin on multiple sites and learn the ins.outs of how it works just to make it safe for hackers and such.

(@rtpharry) thanks for the advice… question. if that works, won’t we lose the ones that have tried to hack the site already and then have to build it again? And how long before it crashes the site??

Thanks for reaching out. We’ve been investigating these reports and now think we have a cause and a solution.

One thing to note, that if you see an error in your logs about running out of memory, it may not be the same issue. It might be a case of needing to allocate more memory to PHP. PHP memory is cumulative. That means the amount set in php.ini is shared between all your plugins, your theme, and WordPress, plus any other non-WordPress apps you have installed in the site folder. We recommend changing it to 256M and upgrading to PHP 7 or above, which introduced better memory handling. If that doesn’t help, please try one of the other solutions mentioned here.

What we found is that on some sites the emailedIssuesList row in the wfconfig table had became too large from recording hashes of previously emailed scan issues. Reinstalling Wordfence fresh (where the data and database tables are removed) was fixing the issue but this lets us know exactly where the problem was.

There are 2 ways of fixing this.

1. If you are comfortable using MySQL queries you can issue this command using PHPMyAdmin in your hosting control panel:
delete from wp_wfConfig where name = ’emailedIssuesList’;

2. If you are not comfortable with running queries do this:
Remove and reset Wordfence, using the Wordfence Assistant plugin to remove all tables and data and then reinstall the plugin.

We are looking at a solution to prevent it from happening again and hopefully will include it in the next release.

Thanks always for being patient as we worked diligently to solve this for our customers. Thanks as well for reaching out and providing valuable information to help us solve it. Let us know if this solves it for you.

Hi,
i did the update and tried to activate the plug-in. It doesn’t activate: i have a worpress message telling me that Wordfence causes a fatal error…

Hey @waveout,

We recently released 7.4.8 to address this, which has resolved the issue. Also, completely resetting Wordfence has resolved the issue. Can you please try this and let me know if it helps?

Everyone else, if these two suggestions don’t help can you please open a new thread and we’ll take a closer look?

Thanks,

Gerroald