Same issue – I had run a couple of scans which ran but got stuck (the ‘5 minute update’ message), the most recent at:
[Jan 25 17:30:48] Checking 12 host keys against Wordfence scanning servers.
[Jan 25 17:30:50] Done host key check.
[Jan 25 17:39:02] Scan stop request received.
(The last line obviously because I pressed Stop!)
I’ve been messing with the max_execution_time etc and saving, but every time I come back to the Scan page to try again, I get the behaviour described by the OP, and the first 5 checks in the progress bar remain checked. Looks like Stop is failing to unset a flag somewhere…?
P.S. This is clearly very site-specific — I’ve tried to replicate the issue on a different site on the same server, using the same theme, starting and stopping scans etc, and WF is behaving perfectly. I’m guessing there must be some kind of plugin conflict? The site I’m having trouble with is a particularly complex one with (frankly) far too many plugins on it.
Update: I discovered that the latest Yoast SEO update has broken various things on the site in question (including login redirection and New Post, both of which returned blank pages!), which were fixed by disabling it. I also removed and reinstalled WordFence (though without removing all its settings, which were preserved in the reinstall). However this has not solved the problem – it’s still refusing to run a manual scan. When I have time at the weekend, I shall try removing WordFence AND all its settings, and reinstall and configure from scratch, and see if that helps.
Rick @pcservices – any progress on yours?
I’ve given up looking for the source of this (and other) issues, and reverted the site in question to a late December backup. Something since then has broken lots of things, including WordFence. Now working with WP 4.9.2 with a slightly older theme version, and old versions of Yoast SEO and Page Builder (among others), and the latest WordFence (7.0.1) does now appear to be working OK (at least it’s completed a scan).
Conclusion: There’s a conflict somewhere with another plugin/theme update, but God knows where, and it was breaking other more fundamental things too, so I strongly suspect the presenting issue is NOT a WF problem, but something else entirely.
Hi wwwolf,
Thanks for the information and your solution. Unfortunately there have been some major changes to the site I’m having problems with since the last full backup was done. It seems that BackWPup stopped working and it’s last backup was before these changes were made.
I’m going to try removing and reinstalling Yoast SEO and see if that makes a difference. I already tried removing Wordfence and it’s settings but that didn’t help.
Oh well, that’ll teach me to check the backups on my sites a bit more often!!!
Hi @wwwolf and @pcservices
On the scan page, when you open the browser console, can you see an JS error? that’s where I would start debugging this issue.
Also, clearing cache from your site might help, there are different type of caches you should consider, for example:
– Any caching plugin.
– A plugin that has JS/CSS minify option.
– Your hosting provider might have its own caching system, make sure to purge the cache from there too.
– Cloudflare in case you are using it.
– Finally, clear your browser cache, you might need to switch to another browser -temporarily- for testing.
Thanks @wwwolf for your input in this thread.
I seem to have fixed it.
It was due to a combination of issues relating to out-of-date plugins (which I removed and installed alternatives where necessary), disabling Yoast SEO, Clearing minify cashes, re-enabling Yoast SEO and adding a max-memory line to my wp-config file: define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ ); – I’m not sure what the implications of that are as far as my shared hosting provider is concerned… I’ll wait to see if they complain 🙂
I tried these in different orders on five sites and, only once I had done all of them, the scan completed.
