Sorry to hear about the trouble — I haven’t seen this happen on deactivation. The .htaccess file looks to be ok — do you know where to find the site’s error log file? Usually it is named error_log or error.log, sometimes in the root of the site, or sometimes in another location.
If it is a problem that Wordfence wasn’t able to be deactivated properly by WordPress, you could rename the “wordfence” directory to “wordfence.disabled”.
You can also check in wp-config.php, to see if there were any “include” or “require” lines that aren’t typical. Wordfence does not modify that file like some other plugins (especially caching plugins).
If you have any plugins that interact with Wordfence, like some of the plugins that can be used to change settings on multiple sites without having to log into each one, you may need to disable one of those plugins — they could be trying to interact with Wordfence after it’s been disabled. (Since you can’t get to the admin pages, you could use the same method of renaming their plugin folders to deactivate them.)
-Matt R
Thanks for the speedy reply. I already renamed the wordfence directory, so I will try your other suggestions now and get back to you asap.
Cheers!
Well, it’s SOMETHING to do with the plugins. Renamed all and got back into admin. Started reactivating one by one, and got downed again, BUT it doens’t seem to matter which ones I deactivate in order to get admin back again! I am very puzzled by this.
Wordfence unistalled now, and have uninstalled a few other plugins, and will start adding them back again one at a time.
Thanks a lot for your help!
Wow, that is unusual! Since it seems to be somewhat random, it might be caused by some issues on the host or your hosting account — if you do find the error log, it might narrow it down. (The host could open the error log too, and it might lead to issues they didn’t know about, or issues specific to your account.)
It could be if you have a limit on database size or disk space (whether that includes the database or not), since that can cause some intermittent issues, especially if you have a plugin that adds somewhat-large transient data to the database.
-Matt R
Seems the php memory is 42MB on this server? I don’t know if this has been downsized as I noticed the site running shockingly slow recently.
I reckon this is the problem, and nothing to do with Wordfence at all. Just coincidental timing.
Every time I try to activate a new plugin now, the site goes down.
FML, the job was finished this morning :/
That is definitely low, and can cause some issues too — it’s unusual for low memory to cause trouble when deactivating plugins, but stranger things have happened.
It might be worth checking with the host on the memory amount — I had a host reduce my disk space by mistake once (presumably intending to adjust another customer), so there’s a chance it wasn’t intended. Good luck, and hopefully it can be fixed!
-Matt R
@ilovetequila
Yes, that does sound like a memory issue.
I may have experienced that before.
I have to keep raising the memory value in wp-config whenever I add too many new plugins.
@themaproducer
Increased mem in config to 64MB. Working now. Site still slow on front and backend though. Will get client to talk to hosting.
Site working at least PHEW. Onto the next job 🙂
Hi,
i just had a similar problem as described here: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-log-full-of-missing-database-tables?replies=12
So i deaktivated WordFence with the option to delete database entries.
Now i have the same sympthom as described in this post, but not not memory related. i have 2048MB as WP limit.
My logfiles showing several entries like this now:
[Fri Jun 03 22:13:25.760611 2016] [fcgid:warn] [pid 17224] [client 157.55.39.152:44657] mod_fcgid: stderr: PHP Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required ‘/srv/www/vhosts/netzwerkstudio.de/httpdocs/wordpress/wordfence-waf.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/share/php5:/usr/share/php5/PEAR’) in Unknown on line 0
Something requires the file “wordfence-waf.php”, i just can’t find it.
Any suggestions?
regards
– Alex
DOH!
I found it!
auto_prepend_file = ‘/srv/www/vhosts/netzwerkstudio.de/httpdocs/wordpress/wordfence-waf.php’;
That string was suggested in a recent update… After removal, the site works again.
regards
– Alex
