iThemes Security Throwing Semi-Random Internal Server 500 Error

  • Innervates

    (@innervates)


    9 years, 7 months ago

    Very odd problem. Every once in awhile, a computer in our network, will receive a Error 500 – Internal Server Error – when attempting to access any page on our website.

    Sometimes, this only happens on one computer at a time – rarely have I seen it on two computers at a time.

    Even stranger – it only happens with a certain browser. If the affected user, opens up the same page in a different browser (i.e. Firefox instead of Chrome) they can visit any page of our site with no problem, and the affected browser still gets the error.

    Furthermore, the only way to rectify this is to either

    A) Close that affected browser completely, and reopen (this works most of the time)
    B) disable iThemes plugin – this works 100% of the time immediately. After disabling, an immediate refresh of the browser window, brings the site back up.

    Anyone have any idea what, in iThemes, could possibly be causing this?

    I have to think it’s browser based to some degree – it can’t be IP related, otherwise all computers and all browsers would have a problem.

    What in iThemes is dictated on an individual browser basis?

    Thank you!

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Thread Starter Innervates

    (@innervates)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    additionally – I checked our apache server logs… this was the only thing that stood out to me

    Premature end of script headers: admin-ajax.php, referrer: …

    Thread Starter Innervates

    (@innervates)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    I’m also pretty sure it’s not a .htaccess problem, because I went in an commented out each section one at a time, and didn’t resolve it.

    So what does ithemes change when it’s activated? If I know that, I can probably figure this out – because it only happens when it’s activated, and when deactivated, problem is fixed instantly. Reactivate, problem returns instantly.

    Thread Starter Innervates

    (@innervates)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    Okay – I think I’ve narrowed it down to a Cookie problem with iThemes.

    What in iThemes creates cookies – what file – someone give me something here, and I can dig and troubleshoot the rest.

    I’m able to fix the problem on the browser by deleting the Cookies – clearing cache had no effect.

    Brice Emry

    (@brice-emry)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    I have exactly the same problem (error 500 from time to time) and I think that this may be a compatibility problem with my cache plugin, but I do not know.

    *B.V.RammannaRaau*

    (@reviewkeys)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    @innervates,
    If your are using caching plugins, and you recently updated to the newer version of iThemes Security, then delete old cache from your site and also delete browser(from where you are getting 500 error) history from your site. Now test the site with all browsers. If problem still exists then disable file change detection option. Again test in all browsers, if your resolved at this point, then tweak around this feature by excluding or including specific directories or files. Hope this works your problem.

    Thread Starter Innervates

    (@innervates)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    Seems really weird that file change detection would throw an internal server 500 error. It happened again today – so you’re telling me that every time I update iThemes, ALLLL of my visitors have to delete their browser history?

    Doesn’t this seem like a really big flaw?

    Thread Starter Innervates

    (@innervates)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    I have a caching plugin – but I’ve had Browser Cache disabled for 3 weeks now – and the error just happened again today.

    *B.V.RammannaRaau*

    (@reviewkeys)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    @innervates,

    so you’re telling me that every time I update iThemes, ALLLL of my visitors have to delete their browser history?

    I never said that your site visitors have to delete their browser history or similar action at your visitors end.

    Sometimes, this only happens on one computer at a time – rarely have I seen it on two computers at a time.

    My point is that, some times serving cached data might conflict current version settings. In recent versions updates, we found such things happened in some of our production sites. We found some workaround by clearing old cached data. But visitors no need to do anything.

    Even stranger – it only happens with a certain browser. If the affected user, opens up the same page in a different browser (i.e. Firefox instead of Chrome) they can visit any page of our site with no problem, and the affected browser still gets the error.

    We found this kind of issues in past. Chrome used to serve cached data, it is a default behavior of chrome. Where as in firefox, under Options there is a privacy setting having three options. “Remember History” is one of the three available privacy settings. Select this “Remember History” from Options>>Privacy>>History>>Remember History. Now test your site pages both in chrome as well as in firefox. If you find same 500 error randomly in forefox too, then there is something conflicting between Cache and iThemes Security plugins settings.

    joseamirandavelez

    (@joseamirandavelez)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    im having exactly the same problem. same errors in the log files plus some segmentation fault errors and apache crashing. I spent the whole night until 4:30 am trying to figure out what was the problem. As soon as I disabled iThemes Security the problem went away.

    D0a

    (@d0a)

    9 years, 6 months ago

    Same problem here too, file change detection off! Using latest version

    itonstandby

    (@itonstandby)

    8 years, 8 months ago

    I’m getting the problem on a test site. It seems the problem occurs after a long period of inactivity. It only happens in Chrome, however. Safari is just fine. Obviously, I’m using a Mac.

    Other than deleting cookies in the browser, the only solution is to deactivate, delete, and reinstall iThemes Security.

    I have no site cache in place. I cannot continue with this issue so I will be changing to another plugin for security.

    joseamirandavelez

    (@joseamirandavelez)

    8 years, 8 months ago

    Same thing I did. I moved to Wordfence.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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