snark

Hi Matt,

The engineer at my web host solved the problem, which I will relate here both for your benefit and for anybody searching this problem in the future. I had previously tried Bulletproof Security a few months ago before going with Wordfence, but I didn’t like it and found it too invasive. I uninstalled BS and thought all traces had been removed, but apparently it had left a custom .htaccess file in the plugins folder that I never knew was there, and rules contained within this .htaccess file were denying access to WordPress to modify some of its own files. Removing this file fixed the problem! Interestingly, Wordfence worked fine for several months with the BS .htaccess file in the plugins folder, so perhaps the 6.0.12 version of Wordfence that came out the other day was different in some way that allowed that BS .htaccess file to break it.

Thanks for all your help in figuring out the problem! Cheers.

Thanks for the clarification. No red box, no spinner — nothing happens at all. I believe the other 2 sites are on the same server, since in the past when the server has gone down all 3 sites have gone down, but I’m not positive they are on the same server.

Thanks for the error log file tip. I found it and it does have a number of “client denied by server configuration” errors for Wordfence, Jetpack and some other plugins. I’ll contact my host and have them look into it.

I tried “Disable config caching,” but it won’t work because Options is not saving. (Indeed, you have a Catch-22 right there on the Options page, because next to “Disable config caching” you say, in parentheses, “Try this if your options aren’t saving,” but if Options are not saving, as mine aren’t, then you cannot try this. See the problem?

Nothing in my .htaccess file specifically blocking Ajax. Nothing has changed on my end since WF stopped working, and it’s not likely due to changes by my web host because WF still works fine on two other sites I have with the same host.

Regarding the troubleshooting page you sent:

The first item, “Try enabling the option at the bottom of the Wordfence ‘options’ page titled ‘Start all scans remotely,'” doesn’t work because, again, I can’t save any changes to the Options page.

My site’s WordPress AJAX handler is working — I checked https://www.example.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with my site and I saw the blank page with a “0” at the top left.

Nothing else on that page is applicable. I’m not getting any error messages, WF just stopped doing anything and I can’t save changes to the Options page. And like I said, I tried throwing everything out, including all the “wp_wf…” tables in the database, and starting all over with a fresh installation, and still this problem persists.

@maijs — I had everything configured and working in WP 2.9.2, when I realized that your plugin was messing with my BuddyPress installation — specifically, BuddyPress Forum topics will not display if AsideShop is activated.

Any chance you will be updating your plugin soon to be compatible with BuddyPress?

Thanks.