Title: Admin Ajax problem Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # Admin Ajax problem * [dnawp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dnawp/) * (@dnawp) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/) * The last few days my host’s firewall has activated and blocked my IP. After quite a lot of testing of other possibilities (hardware and software) I believe I have narrowed it down to an issue with Wordfence. I have it installed on a number of sites on the same host/server and it is behaving the same way for all of them. * When I visit the live traffic page it fires off repeated requests to admin-ajax but it is getting back a 404 error – however this doesn’t happen all the time, the first time it requests access it is fine – it is just happening on subsequent calls (when it tries to update the page or I try to block an IP for example). The way this problem presents itself is for the red WordFence message on the bottom right to flick up very quickly when I try to do something instead of staying on the screen for longer. When I check the error messages in Chrome – javascript is throwing a 404 error message when it tries to access the ajax file. I believe that over the course of the last days/weeks these 404s have been added up by the host and over time must number of the 100s. * I haven’t tried to block my own IP so I don’t believe it is caused by my blocking my own IP! Also I have NOT password protected the wp-admin folder and admin-ajax has normal file permissions. * Admin-ajax also works fine when called by other plugins. * And I believe that the only rewrite rule I have to do with wp-admin is as follows: * RewriteRule ^wp-admin/includes/ – [F] * I don’t think it is a corrupted version of Wordfence – since it is happening on all sites I am using it on. * The hosting company doesn’t have its full complement of staff in today (Saturday)– but they have emailed me the two files that are allegedly causing the problem: * plugins/wordfence/tmp/.htaccess plugins/wordfence/lib/whois/whois.be.php * I have checked both of these files and neither seem to be any different from the files that are in the version of Wordfence I just downloaded to compare. Perhaps they are just a red herring. * I do have another security plugin installed (iThemes Security). I have tried disabling it to see if it stops the problem but both the ajax 404 message and eventually the firewall issue with the host are still happening. * Would appreciate any advice. Thanks. * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/) Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total) * [Scott Dayman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sdayman/) * (@sdayman) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5153996) * Have you added your home IP address to the whitelist on the Options page? * Thread Starter [dnawp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dnawp/) * (@dnawp) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5154032) * I do not believe that this is the problem. The “firewall” block is not Wordfence blocking me, but the actual host blocking my IP to the entire shared hosting facility – I can not visit any site that the host is hosting (not just mine!). * Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question/suggestion. Does Wordfence need admin user to put in an IP address each time they login using a different network. If I am on a train and my IP address changes every so often do I need to keep updating the whitelist to continue to use Wordfence. * Also I am not sure why Wordfence would need or want to use an IP address of the user each time it wanted to use admin-ajax. Surely checking to make sure that the user is logged in as an admin would be sufficient? * Thread Starter [dnawp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dnawp/) * (@dnawp) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5154063) * Just wanted to correct a mistake I made above, I just doubled checked the error I was/am getting – it is a 403 error (forbidden) when the admin-ajax.php file tries to load up the following script at: * wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=0&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,utils,json2& ver=3.9.1:4 * The problem seems to happen when a page is “reloaded” or part of a page is reloaded. For the first 10 or so calls to file everything seems fine, and the data is returned fine, then it starts returning the 403 error. 🙁 * [Scott Dayman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sdayman/) * (@sdayman) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5154067) * Ah, I see. You think Wordfence is triggering something at your host provider that’s blocking you. That shouldn’t happen. * I’ve had my host completely block my home IP address over excessive SSH/SFTP connections. It clears up after an hour or so. * Hopefully your host can figure this out. * Thread Starter [dnawp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dnawp/) * (@dnawp) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5154085) * slowly getting to the bottom of this… * The Live Traffic panel seems to be one of things that is tripping the mod_security– it doesn’t like the fact that “Live Traffic” is calling admin-ajax so many times. * It looks like the host’s mod-security is being excessive pernickety about admin- ajax being called every 2 seconds! Reducing the amount of calls that the scripts call or use admin-ajax has hopefully resolved the problems! * FYI (and for anyone else that might have the same problem) – there is a setting in Wordfence’s Options panel (Update interval in seconds (2 is default)) which allowed me to change the interval time. * Thanks for your help. * [Scott Dayman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sdayman/) * (@sdayman) * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5154097) * I don’t use Live Traffic, but I do have my update interval set to 60. I think it also affects the scan windows. * Upping your interval should also reduce the load on your server. Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total) The topic ‘Admin Ajax problem’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/wordfence/assets/icon.svg?rev=2070865) * [Wordfence Security - Firewall, Malware Scan, and Login Security](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/reviews/) ## Tags * [admin-ajax](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/admin-ajax/) * 6 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Scott Dayman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sdayman/) * Last activity: [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-problem/#post-5154097) * Status: not resolved