Wordfence update killed sites

  • Resolved 50 Seconds North

    (@50-seconds-north)


    2 years, 6 months ago

    A couple of my sites have gone down completely since Wordfence updated. I’m getting an repeated error (presumable every time someone tries to access the sites):

    [20-Sep-2022 09:36:35 America/Boise] PHP Warning:  Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
[20-Sep-2022 09:36:35 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error:  Unknown: Failed opening required '/home4/[xxx]/public_html/wordfence-waf.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in Unknown on line 0

    (The [xxx] represents removed usernames.)

    The wordfence-waf.php file is still there and seems unchanged.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Me too. Took down my site. Had to delete php.ini and user.ini.

    Thread Starter 50 Seconds North

    (@50-seconds-north)

    I ended up commenting out the relevant line in the user.ini file, which fixed it. A pain, though. Hopefully an update will sort this, as it does reduce the security of the site.

    Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi @50-seconds-north, thanks for getting in touch.

    When I’ve seen this before, the path /home4/[xxx]/public_html/wordfence-waf.php wasn’t correct, but if it is and wordfence-waf.php is there as you’re describing there’s a chance there could be something else in the file that’s causing a fatal error. That should be in your error log too, if so.

    Removing .user.ini/.htaccess where the optimization is pointing at the wrong path or causing another error would certainly fix the site issue on the face of things, but put the firewall back into basic protection. If you try re-optimizing, which will create another auto_prepend_file directive to wordfence-waf.php in the appropriate place, does the issue reoccur or allow the firewall to run optimized without issue? Do you notice any differences to the file you had to delete in this case?

    You can read more about optimizing here: https://www.wordfence.com/help/firewall/optimizing-the-firewall/#firewall-optimization-setup

    Thanks,

    Peter.

    Thread Starter 50 Seconds North

    (@50-seconds-north)

    I’ve reoptimised this, and it has changed the path to the wordfence-waf.php file in the .user.ini file. I’m not sure why it’s different this time, but does seem to have worked. Thank you.

    Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    No worries @50-seconds-north and I’m really pleased that worked for you. If you have questions about Wordfence in future, by all means start a new topic and we’ll always be glad to help!

    Peter.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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