coralights

my bad – inadvertent dns change on cloud server triggered problems

YES thks!!
there was a dns setting that was inadvertently changed on my cloud server

problem was a dns setting that was incorrectly changed on my lamp cloud server

here’s an nslookup:

Lookup has started…

Trying “downloads.www.ads-software.com”
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 56226
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;downloads.www.ads-software.com. IN ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
downloads.www.ads-software.com. 3600 IN A 66.155.40.188
downloads.www.ads-software.com. 3600 IN A 66.155.40.186
downloads.www.ads-software.com. 3600 IN A 66.155.40.187
downloads.www.ads-software.com. 3600 IN A 66.155.40.189

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
www.ads-software.com. 6018 IN NS ns1.mobiusltd.com.
www.ads-software.com. 6018 IN NS ns2.mobiusltd.com.

Received 154 bytes from 204.186.110.76#53 in 116 ms

some more:

wp_remote_post() test to noc1.wordfence.com failed! Response was: Could not resolve host: noc1.wordfence.com; Name or service not known

here’s some more:

DNS lookup for noc1.wordfence.com returns: noc1.wordfence.com

STARTING CURL http CONNECTION TEST….
Curl connectivity test failed with response:

Curl HTTP status: 0
Curl error code: 6
Curl Error: Could not resolve host: noc1.wordfence.com; Name or service not known

STARTING CURL https CONNECTION TEST….
Curl connectivity test failed with response:

Curl HTTP status: 0
Curl error code: 6
Curl Error: Could not resolve host: noc1.wordfence.com; Name or service not known

Starting wp_remote_post() test
wp_remote_post() test to noc1.wordfence.com failed! Response was: Could not resolve host: noc1.wordfence.com; Name or service not known

Starting wp_remote_post() test
wp_remote_post() test to noc1.wordfence.com failed! Response was: Could not resolve host: noc1.wordfence.com; Name or service not known

here’s something I found that may help determine or identify what the hell is going on …. I use the free version on a lot of my blogs & they all having problems with downloads.www.ads-software.com and the wordfence scan ….

[Apr 30 00:46:59] Blocking fake Googlebot at IP 66.249.65.221
[Apr 30 02:13:27] Blocking fake Googlebot at IP 66.249.65.221
[Apr 30 04:28:46] Blocking fake Googlebot at IP 66.249.65.221
[Apr 30 06:40:43] Call to Wordfence API to resolve IPs failed: There was an error connecting to the the Wordfence scanning servers: Could not resolve host: noc1.wordfence.com; Name or service not known

still a problem – wp & plugin updates on another site are throwing the same error message
also Rackspace cloud server tech support could not verify/reach downloads.www.ads-software.com ….

thanks but I don’t think so ….

https://downloads.www.ads-software.com/release/wordpress-4.5-no-content.zip

seems https related – I read WP changed something security related a day or so ago
might be related to that

the wordpress site is africanfishes.com

Thank you much Tara.
Since this behavior (showing the toolbar on the site pages) has been the default for wordpress – how did it change for this one site?
I don’t understand why I need to do anything? or what could have happened to break it …

I sense some disingenuous disclaimers above ….
the fact is that spam referrals generate artificial traffic for the referral website which in this case was buttons-for-website.com
To insinuate there is no complicity on the part of buttons-for-website.com is naive to say the least.
There are many companies that provide share button mechanisms that don’t use spam to build their business.
All my sites (dozens) were not WP but were ordinary landing pages. I track them using statcounter.com which is how I picked up on what was happening.
Spam itself is normally not malicious but extremely annoying as well as time consuming which equates to losing money aka damaging

OK … this MAY help – DISCLAIMER!!!!
I’m going to try it as an apache directive om my server substituting the offending url(s) for spamsite.com(s) I’m a linux guy & I think windows server users have to be cautious – may effect frontpage

# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https://(www\.)?spamsite1.com.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https://(www\.)?spamsite2.com.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https://(www\.)?spamsite3.com.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https://(www\.)?spamsite4.com.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* – [F,L]

I’m seeing this url “buttons-for-websites” in my statcounter traffic reports preceding my various websites url’s
the visitors are from multiple locations worldwide??????
this seems wrong?! something fishy?

UPDATE
it seems from some research I’ve done that this is a spam referrer – something new for me … it’s not a word press issue (yet) in my case

Thank you much for the prompt reply. I’ve looked at & tested some of the other similar plugins that provide more capabilities in their base/free versions. I’ve found what I was looking for.
Observations.
It seems your PRO version is limited in scope in comparison to the other free version role admin plugins.

It’s difficult to commit to pay in advance for what amounts to a black box aka a “pro” version that appears limited in capabilities insofar as the scope of the third party integration that you mention.

I suggest you add third party capability to the free version and also expand your pro version scope to include more 3rd party plugin integrations … in order to strengthen the marketing bridge from the former to the latter.
Just my opinion. Thks again.

my apologies if I’ve overlooked something and/or been hyper-critical – I simply reacted to the settings pages – it seemed as I configured the plugin that there are/were far more disabled (premium needed) settings than basic settings – I didn’t bother to count … my guess was that 9 of ten settings needed to be unlocked — it may have been more like 70% so perhaps I’ve misjudged – your narrative certainly gives a much more weighted & favorable impression on the basic features …
yet I also felt that several premium features belonged in basic – which would give the basic vs pro features more balance – I’ll check
thanks for the speedy reaction …