wordpress admin: failed trying to send a request to the Font Awesome API server

Reinstalling it fails with Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.

Has there been a time previously when this plugin was working on your WordPress server? Or has it only ever resulted in this error?

The error message about failing to send a request to the Font Awesome API server indicates a problem on your WordPress server, and possibly some kind of firewall rule or other network configuration that is causing your WordPress server not to be permitted to contact the Font Awesome API server to retrieve the metadata it needs.

This happens sometimes when web hosting providers have unnecessarily restrictive rules in place and can usually be easily resolved by relaxing the appropriate policy on the server.

This other issue is an example of the kind of problem you might be facing.

If your WordPress server’s networking rules are configured appropriately, you or your web hosting provider should be able to run this on the WordPress server:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{ "query": "{ release(version: \"latest\") { version } }" }' https://api.fontawesome.com

And see a response like this:

{"data":{"release":{"version":"5.12.1"}}}

(but with a more recent version number)

downgrading to Version 4.0.0-rc17 didn’t make any difference.

Can you advise me where to look to see what the details of the failing request and its error are?

If you have shell access to your web server (or if your system administrator or web hosting provider can help), then the best way to see the details of the failing request on the server would be to execute the curl command I pasted above from a shell prompt on the web server.

If your server’s networking is inappropriately configured, then it won’t matter which version of this plugin you have installed or whether you uninstall/re-install it. In any case, your web server must be configured correctly to communicate with the Font Awesome API server. These are normally not configurations that can be changed by anything you con control from WordPress.

I am receiving the same exact issue and have made no changes to my site since it was working last night. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with my host who went through a slew of troubleshooting and said everything on their end are working properly. They are in the process of creating a ticket for me with all of the steps they went through for me to provide you, but yeah.. for no rhyme or reason I am experiencing the same issue.

I should note that when i disable the plugin the error message does go away. my server host says he is confident there is some issue on the FA end, so i am just waiting on the support ticket notes to provide you the steps they went through.

Here is the response from my server host:
-You began to receive an error message in your WordPress Admin stating that the Font Awesome plugin is not able to reach the Font Awesome API servers.
-You began to see performance issues on the mobile version of the website, with the hamburger menu, cart, and checkout.

We determined on the phone that deactivating the Font Awesome plugin allowed for significant improvement in performance across the website. I did find that your website did auto-scale and reach php-fpm max_children at around 1:00 PM Eastern time, and it may be correlated. Based on tests I was able to run from the server, it seems there is no issue with connecting with Font Awesomes API as shown below:

$ curl -I https://api.fontawesome.com
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
access-control-allow-credentials: true
access-control-allow-origin: *
access-control-expose-headers:
cache-control: max-age=0, private, must-revalidate
content-length: 53
content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
date: Sun, 06 Dec 2020 18:33:32 GMT
server: Cowboy
x-request-id: Fk40SshbvcEkLGwBE9-i

You may want to contact Font Awesome for further assistance.

My host server can confirm that there are no issues on the server end after running the troubleshooting method you mentioned above:
——————
Please see below for output from command that the plugin author requested be run:

$ curl -H “Content-Type: application/json” –data ‘{ “query”: “{ release(version: \”latest\”) { version } }” }’ https://api.fontawesome.com
{“data”:{“release”:{“version”:”5.15.1″}}}
—————–

Based on this, it suggests that our host is able to talk to your API without issue.

Please advise?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by brianoakes.

@mlwilkerson WP forum shows my comments are held for moderation, so im not sure if you are able to read them.

@cdcooperuk were you able to get your issue resolved? My host server is convinced the issue is somewhere on FAs end, i’ve had to deactivate the WP plugin for now as it was dragging my site like crazy constantly trying to connect to the API

FWIW, I am having the exact same issue.

I’m investigating the FA API server side of this.

FWIW, I am also having the exact same issue.

Hi:
Dear friends, your plugin gives me this error notice: Your WordPress server has failed trying to send a request to the Font Awesome API server. When entering the dasbhoard, preventing me from accessing the settings, although the icons are perfectly visible (The notice is given in Spanish,), I would hesitate to be told what happened or what I can do to repair them. I insist that the icons are visible and it seems to work, but I cannot access the settings. Awaiting your reply, kindly:

Pau Company

The API server seems to be working correctly.

I’m now investigating some recent changes in the plugin’s code that refreshes data from the API server.