Blocked after trying to post from Windows Live Writer

  • Resolved IanHopkinson

    (@ianhopkinson)


    9 years, 3 months ago

    I recently upgraded to Wordfence 5.3.5, shortly thereafter I tried to make a post using Windows Live Writer at which point I got a 403 forbidden message on trying to access xmlrpc.php.

    My IP address was then blocked which meant I couldn’t access either my site, or the cpanel to my site. Contacting my hosting provider resolved this.

    My interpretation of this is that I triggered Wordfence by trying to post via the xmlrpc mechanism which led it to block me.

    Searching for xmlrpc and Wordfence leads to posts from April last year which suggest there should be an option to enable xmlrpc access but I can’t find it in the current version of Wordfence.

    My previous blog post was made 2014-12-31 which is after I upgraded to WordPress 4.1, and I would have posted from Windows Live Writer.

    How do I allow posting via xmlrpc?

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • WFBrian

    (@wfbrian)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Hi Ian,

    Let me check with the developers. That shouldn’t be an issue with 5.0.3 and higher.

    Thanks,
    Brian

    Plugin Author Wordfence Security

    (@mmaunder)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Hi Ian,

    We don’t block xmlrpc anymore. What did you see when you were blocked? In general it’ll be very clear that you’ve been blocked by Wordfence. The only time you’ll see a FORBIDDEN message is if you have Falcon enabled and we’ve blocked an IP using your .htaccess. In that case you can use whatsmyip.org to check what your IP is and then check your .htaccess to see if it’s listed in the list of IP’s that Wordfence is blocking. This will allow you to isolate whether it’s Wordfence or not. In this case I suspect it’s something else.

    Regards,

    Mark.

    Thread Starter IanHopkinson

    (@ianhopkinson)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Hello Mark and Brian,

    Thanks for the response.

    In the first instance I see the 403 Forbidden dialog from Windows Live Writer. Then when I visit either my website or cpanel I get a “page not available” style message in the browser (i.e. not referencing WordFence). At this point I’m not able access my cpanel to look at .htaccess. When I log in to my hosting provider to submit a ticket then I get a message saying my IP address has been blocked. (It’s only at this point I thought Wordfence might be involved since I’d just updated it, and a search for xmlrpc implicated Wordfence)

    Does this look more like something my hosting provider is doing? I’ll follow up with them to check.

    best regards

    Ian

    Plugin Author Wordfence Security

    (@mmaunder)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Hi Ian,

    Yes, we can’t block access to your CPanel so it’s them. Log a support call with the host and I’m sure they’ll fix it in short order.

    Regards,

    Mark.

    Thread Starter IanHopkinson

    (@ianhopkinson)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Thanks – I’ve just done that.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • The topic ‘Blocked after trying to post from Windows Live Writer’ is closed to new replies.

Tags