not a valid JSON respnse

  • gra108

    (@gra108)


    3 days, 13 hours ago

    Using Colinear theme.

    WordPress ver 7.1

    Hosted on IONOS

    When updating wordpress widget for side bar, footer on pressing update button he following message is displayed.

    Thee was an error. The response is not a valid JSON response.

    F12 developer console message.

    Failed to load resource Status Code 403 /wp-json/batch/v1?.

    How does one upgrade the wordpress widgets to v3?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • malexandric

    (@malexandric)

    2 days, 22 hours ago

    Hi @gra108,

    Thanks for the detailed report, the console message you found is the key clue. This is not caused by Otter or by your theme, and there is no widget “v3” upgrade needed.

    The block-based Widgets screen in WordPress saves all your changes through a REST API endpoint called /wp-json/batch/v1. The 403 you see in the console means your hosting server is blocking requests to that specific endpoint before WordPress even runs, so the editor receives an error page instead of the JSON it expects, and that produces the “not a valid JSON response” message. We have seen this exact behavior on several IONOS-hosted sites; it comes from a security (WAF) rule on their servers.

    Two ways to fix it:

    1. Recommended: contact IONOS support and ask them to allow POST requests to /wp-json/batch/v1/ on your site. Mention that their firewall is returning a 403 on that path and it breaks the WordPress widgets screen.
    2. Quick workaround: install the official Classic Widgets plugin (by the WordPress team, https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-widgets/). It restores the older widgets screen, which saves each widget individually and does not use the blocked endpoint at all.

    Either option should get your sidebar and footer widgets saving again. Let us know how it goes.

    Thread Starter gra108

    (@gra108)

    2 days, 18 hours ago

    Hi @malexandric

    Thank you for the reply . I have placed a request with IONOS for the Firewall rule.

    Also tested out the WordPress Classic widget route. It is a lot more work using the classic editor than the block editor. So will become more familiar with the classic editor on my local install before converting to it on the live site. Will let you know the IONOS reply when received.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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