Site not loading: is it hacked?

  • allisonjarteaga

    (@allisonjarteaga)


    11 years, 1 month ago

    Our nonprofit’s website (brevardoysterrestoration.org or brevardoystergardens.org) recently stopped working: I’ve tried to pull the site up today on several browsers and multiple computers, but it just says “connecting” indefinitely, without so much as an error message. It does the same thing trying to pull up the login page for the back end.

    I called our web host this morning, and they ran diagnostics and told me that it was a problem with the website, not the hosting. So I accessed the files on the server and tried the usual fixes of renaming the plugins and themes folders, but I didn’t get any results.

    We have received a lot of spam comments in the past, and while I was looking through the site files on the server today, I noticed that there was a duplicate of the wordpress contents folder called wordpress-content_org that contained folders called languages, plugins, and themes in addition to an index.php file. Though I have done some customization to our site in the past, I don’t believe I created this duplicate folder, and I don’t recognize the plugins it contains. I’m wondering if perhaps this could be the problem?

    I have made absolutely no changes to the site since it was last functioning. Is this the result of a hack or something? Is there anything I can do to restore the site’s function? Please help!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • wslade

    (@wslade)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    It’s amazing to me that a hosting company would tell a client they had a website problem but not offer any hint as to a solution. Your host is in a unique position to see exactly what is happening with your sites.

    I suggest you contact your host again and ask them for any error messages and what they suggest you do to fix your site. You are paying them for their services. And hosting services should include answers such as these.

    Assuming you get an error log to look at, post the recent errors here if you have any questions about what to do next. Don’t post duplicate errors and if it is a long list, use pastebin.com and just post the link here.

    The duplicate file, is it at wp-content/wordpress-content_org?

    Thread Starter allisonjarteaga

    (@allisonjarteaga)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    I’ll call them back to see if I can get a copy of the error log, but they were on the phone with me for about 30 minutes doing some diagnostics on the site, and the guys couldn’t seem to figure out what was going on. They said most likely it was an issue with an update (which I have not made) plugins (which I had not changed and already tried the trouble shooting for) or possibly a hacking.

    wslade

    (@wslade)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    Good! We need some direction. Right now there is nothing to go on except it will not load.

    Thread Starter allisonjarteaga

    (@allisonjarteaga)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    The representative I spoke with this time said the only errors he saw were “not found html”, “not implemented html” and “method not allowed”.

    wslade

    (@wslade)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    That is not an error log. I assume you can not login. Can your use ftp or the file manager to look in the WordPress root for a file called error_log and post any recent errors.

    Thread Starter allisonjarteaga

    (@allisonjarteaga)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    Ok, just found that on the server, but nothing has been reported since January of 2014.

    wslade

    (@wslade)

    11 years, 1 month ago

    Dang! Let’s fire a few shots in the dark. But something tells me that this is a hosting issue.

    Try manually deactivating your plugins (no Dashboard access required). If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

    If that does not resolve the issue and you know you have more than one theme loaded, access your server via FTP or SFTP, navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the default theme to activate and hopefully rule-out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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