davidianstyle

Resolved by following instructions listed here:
https://chewett.co.uk/tag/register_http_request_failed/

Looks like there was a problem with the cURL transport method and after disabling it with the Core-Control plugin, the connection was made just fine.

Big thank you to Christopher Hewett for this solution!

The cookie is wp-settings-1 and I know it’s referencing old plugin contents due to ngg_show_update_notice being in the value…

Great find! This is much further than I got.

…and again no idea why it keeps getting set again since plugin isn’t even installed, much less active

Yeah, it’s weird. Even with a clean installation and a fresh database, the cookie is still being set for me as well…

If I load the edit page first (to prevent it from setting cookie again), delete cookie, then set featured image, it works.

I’ve verified that this workaround works for me. If anyone else is using Chrome and having this problem, you can go to Settings > Show Advanced Settings > Content Settings (under “Privacy”) > All cookies and site data… > Search for your domain > Find the “wp-settings-1” cookie and delete it (after having your “edit” page loaded).

It actually comes down to the word ‘update’ being in any cookie value at all. If you just create a new cookie and put the text update anywhere in the value, GoDaddy blocks.

Thanks for taking the time to figure this out, Superman859. I’m going to open a ticket with them. Hopefully many voices will help them make a change.

…but in the tcpdump it looks like those are generated by the auto save and not the ‘use featured image’ POST request.

Ahh, that makes much more sense! I was wondering why some admin-ajax.php requests were going through but most weren’t.

My other WordPress sites are all running 3.4.2 as well. I’ve even tried reverting back to 3.4.1 with no positive results. I’m inclined to agree with your guess, Superman859, that GoDaddy is dropping these packets (possibly to fend off the DDoS).

Have you checked your server’s error logs?

Yup. I’ve looked at both the error logs as well as the access logs to see if there was any useful information there. Nothing in the error logs indicate any issues (permissioning or otherwise). As Superman859 mentions above, it looks like the POST to admin-ajax.php called in the onclick (SetWPThumbnail) never reaches the server, which makes it very hard to debug.

@superman859 – Powercycling didn’t fix it =/

@krishna – I saw that too, but my other WordPress sites I run on the same machine set up as virtual Apache servers are not having the same problem so I don’t think it’s related to the DDoS attack (eg. the “Use as featured image” function on foodieferret.com works fine)

Thanks for your suggestion robnalexpress, however, GoDaddy support has stated they cannot help with this issue and asked that I contact the developer (myself).

Also, I don’t believe that I have ModSecurity installed on my VPS.

Same here. I somehow got something to upload today, but like you said, 99% of the time it just hangs on “Saving…”

I took my hand at debugging the problem (details) but still found myself at a dead end.

Any chance you’re using GoDaddy hosting? I wonder if powercycling will do anything…

Ok, unfortunately, the directory/database wipe and clean reinstall didn’t even fix the issue. I tested the “Use as featured image” functionality immediately after the install (without adding any additional themes/plugins as well as before restoring the database) and was still unable to get it to work.

I’m very much out of ideas – I fell back to my last resort (doing a complete reinstall) and still cannot get it to work =(

Any suggestions/help would be appreciated!

I’ve isolated the problem to a single line in the JavaScript code, however, I still can’t figure out why it’s breaking.

/wp-admin/js/set-post-thumbnail.dev.js (line 5):
jQuery.post(ajaxurl, {action:...}, function{...});

My access log shows activity:

XX.XXX.XXX.X - - [11/Sep/2012:15:48:44 -0400] "POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php " 200 276
XX.XXX.XXX.X - - [11/Sep/2012:15:44:46 -0400] "POST /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php " 200 1

jQuery is kicking off the “post”, however, it never comes back to the “onfinish” function. I’ve done a diff of my local set-post-thumbnail.dev.js (and set-post-thumbnail.js) with the one in wordpress-3.4.2.tar.gz to confirm that I don’t have any customizations.

If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open to trying anything.

No dice. Disabling the virtual servers didn’t fix the issue.

Mike, I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve got a few other WP installations on the same virtual private server, all having the “Use as featured image” working fine, but my main one not working.

I don’t think it’s a firewall/cookie issue as I’ve tried this on several computers now at home/work/gf’s place (clearing the cache occasionally).

I’m going to disable my other virtual servers and see if that does anything. I wonder if there’s some kind of funky interaction going on when trying to find the right DocumentRoot.

Doesn’t look like that worked either.

Some additional things I tried:
– Restarting the apache process
– Restarting the mysqld process

I’m going to do some poking around on my own to try and de-bug this issue. If all else fails, I’m going to back up the site, wipe the directory and reinstall WordPress.

I really appreciate your help, Krishna. Thank you!

Ok, done. Doesn’t look like that did much…

Any other ideas? I’m really hoping I won’t have to start from scratch and rebuild the whole site.

Weird. I don’t remember modifying that theme at all.

I deleted the Twenty Eleven theme and reinstalled a fresh copy. Looks like the validation errors are still happening…

Yup, it’s back at Twenty Eleven. I’ve also disabled all plug-ins.

I didn’t see this thread before, but I’m having the same issues and am still trying to find a solution.