Wordfence scans never complete

Try unchecking all but one or two scan options and test, then add in options one at a time, testing each time. Some of the options are fluff or are probably pretty resource intensive for what they give you. For example, I have a blog with 60,000+ comments, that are closely watched and curated. Do I really need to scan them all, every time? Nope. MTN

Thanks for your suggestions. I will give that a try and see what happens. I already have tried deleting and re-adding the plugin, but that did not seem to help. Very surprised this is happening on DreamHost. May need to give them a call soon. Thanks again!

Hi Jason,
It would be nice if you turned on Enable debugging mode option under (Wordfence > Diagnostics) and run a new scan after that, keep watching for any error message that might appear in the activity log.

Also, take a look at these common reasons that may cause scan not to finish.

Thanks.

@ wfalaa, thanks for your information. I have enabled debug on my site and am running a scan currently. Just wondering how long I should wait before looking at the activity log (assuming it continues to run). Would you say maybe 5-10 min? I am pretty sure that no scan has ever completed on this site. Thanks again!

Just let it run, then come back after an hour or something and you will figure out if the scan ended up successfully with something like:
“Scan Complete. Scanned 91149 files, 79 plugins, 60 themes, 144 pages, 7 comments and 206503 records in 543 seconds.” or it’s stuck at some error messages.

I also want to make sure you tried these suggestions?

Thanks.

My fix: WF scan was stalling in wee hours. Tried changing times (as can do w/premium). No matter 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am would almost never complete. Finding it was hung for several hours, I would cancel that scan, wait, and initiate a new scan. Which would complete — but only after I returned to that open scan tab on my browser. When I would return to that tab, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, the log would suddenly roll fast to the end and say completed. Every time.

Thus, wondering if WF somehow rides on site activity? Supposedly 20-60 human visits daily, daylight hours. So I set the WF scan time to 10am — and haven’t hung again! No matter if I am on the site or not! Changing scan time to busier period might help someone else with light traffic?

I use a scheduled backup plugin that the developer says must have some live traffic to complete, and if it is activated manually must keep the tab open until complete. So this theory is not completely off base. Please can you say if WF might have the same requirement, to ride on open connections? Seems to behave that way. Thank you.