abletec

Seems to me that if you know the domains you want to block, it would be easy to find the IP via a ping. Once that’s in place you can include deny ip.of.unwanted.domain in either .htaccess, or, even better, probably, in the firewall.

ladysyren, please deactivate all your plugins. Then begin reactivating them 1 by 1, and trying to log into your website, until you find the troublesome plugin. Please clear your browser cache & any cache you may have on your server till the problem is resolved.

Can you block the IP of the referring/forwarding domain?

simon_a6, I guess perhaps I’m not completely understanding what you’re saying. Could you please provide an example, or perhaps a website where I can see what’s occurring?

Hello, ladysyren, & welcome.

Looks to me as though you’ve got some sort of security plugin in place. Please try disabling any plugin having to do w/logging in & then try again. I can’t even make it to the recipe, tbh.

Hello simon_a6, & welcome. I hate to say this, but it sounds as though this site has been compromised/hacked. Google can sometimes give indication of this if you do a search that looks like:

site:example.com

but it’s not foolproof for sure.

Sometimes a visit to:

sucuri.sitecheck.net

& then entering the domain of the site in question can be helpful as well. That site doesn’t always see the compromise, but if it reports one, it’s usually quite accurate.

Running a plugin like Wordfence might also spot the compromise, especially if you set the option to search outside of your WordPress installation.

But the fact that there are redirects, etc, is highly suggestive of a compromise. If that be the case, then there are 2 objectives of the repair:

1. To fix the visible evidence of the hack, ie, the redirects, get the site off any blacklists, etc; &
2. 2) To make as certain as possible that the hack can’t occur again. This involves, at a minimum, changing all passwords, both to the dashboard, the database, as well as your hosting control panel, and examining the database & other configuration files such as .htaccess for evidence of compromise. Both are vitally important.
3. 
   If this feels like a bit more than you can or wish to handle, you can always post a job at jobs.wordpress.net

Cliverlong, part of my confusion is–or maybe just was–that I wasn’t sure if this was a WSL install, (or Mac equivalent), wherein Windows or Mac was the actual OS, or if it was an actual standalone Ubuntu server.

Now I feel I’m getting into territory where you might already know what I’m about to say, & it feels condescending. If so, apologies in advance. Here goes. To find hidden files on a Linux system, you use the command ls /a (perhaps combined w/other options as well). If you’re using a GUI, then please ensure your file manager is set to show hidden files.

I think you said yes, but are you able to view the XML files you’ve exported? You can do that w/any text editor.

The web server files should belong to the webserver group. In Apache, that’s generally www-data. Files in the var/www subfolder (which appears to be where you’re housing the site), should have permissions of 644 & directories/subdirectories of 755.

If after the above you still can’t find a .htaccess file, Theme Isle gives some tips on how to create 1:

https://themeisle.com/blog/htaccess-file-in-wordpress/

If we haven’t found success w/these steps, perhaps please consider using pastebin or similar to where we can look at your Apache & PHP configuration files. I have to admit I’m more of an Nginx gal myself, but I can probably find my way through Apache. Nginx can at first be a headache to set up, but the performance is often superior. Since this is a local install, though, the additional work probably isn’t worth it, accept, perhaps, as a learning exercise if the time ever comes to set it up on a VPS.

Another thing you might find helpful–& it’s always my first goto when my server’s acting wonky–is to consult my error logs. They’ll either be in /var/log/apache2 or /var/log/httpd. If you’re not quite sure what they’re telling you, then again, perhaps paste 1 into pastebin w/some questions, & we can help w/that.

Let’s see what this gets us. We’ll get this resolved.

It’s on your server, either via the file manager in your hosting control panel or via FTP/SFTP.

If you don’t want the site installed in a subdirectory, then yes, please delete it, after backing up any 3rd-party software, because that is where your privacy policy page is redirecting to, & because it just takes up more disk space & presents yet 1 more attack surface for criminals.

DISCLAIMER! The following is written w/o the aid of coffee. Any errors or omissions are attributable to said lack.

Ok, I guess I was unaware that this was a local install (did you mention that?) <blushing>. At this point we also don’t know what tool, if any, you used to make your local install, & that would help immensely.

The standard tool used to import content is a plugin from the www.ads-software.com site. From your dashboard, please go to ‘Tools > Import’. Download the plugin, & follow the provided onscreen instructions.

Please understand that the .htaccess file is hidden, so you’ll need to have your operating system set up to be able to see those. We don’t know what that is, so until we do, we can’t provide meaningful instructions.

Again, as stated above, you don’t tell us what tool you used, if any, to do your local install. Please check the documentation on whatever tool you used, if applicable, because, some, like Xampp, actually require you run it w/administrative rights in order to set the proper read/write permissions.

Please let us know if this helps, and/or if you have further questions. It’s now officially coffee time.

301 means it’s a permanent redirect. 200 means that the page was found.

If you want the website in your webroot, just delete the subdirectory. Make certain any purchased 3rd-party plugins and/or themes are backed up prior to doing that, please.

Hi, kw7website, & welcome. Looks like you’ve got 2 websites, 1 located in your web root & the other located in a subdirectory called tw. I suggest you decide which you want to keep. You can always export content over from the other directory before deleting it.

Hi, cliverlong, & welcome. First, I have a question–what is your webserver, Apache or Nginx? If Nginx, then that would explain the absence of the .htaccess file.

Secondly, you may need to change your php.ini file. The variables involved are upload_max_filesize and post_max_size.

There is a plugin called “add from server” that allows files uploaded to the server to be imported into the media library, but it hasn’t been tested for compatibility since v. 5.2, so I can’t recommend it any longer, unfortunately.

lumazita, so I’ve got 2 problems. The first is I don’t know Portuguese, and the 2nd is I don’t know what’s supposed to be there.

Have you disabled all plugins and used a default WordPress theme (they begin with ‘twenty’)?

Hi, lumazita, & welcome. Have you tried clearing your browser cache?