Title: Firewall restrictions Last modified: February 16, 2021 --- # Firewall restrictions * Resolved [StevenWoolston](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stevenwoolston/) * (@stevenwoolston) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/) * I don’t know if anyone else has come across this, but I had trouble with it and thought I would share. * Restoring an image reads from the file system and writes from the backup folder to the media library folder. This is fine, but if you have firewall software/ plugin installed (like Wordfence) you will get errors when trying to do this. The reason is logical, because the firewall is blocking write access to the file system. * I resolved by temporarily disabling the firewall and running my watermark processes. Then make sure to turn the firewall back on. Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) * Plugin Author [Kuba Mikita](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kubitomakita/) * (@kubitomakita) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14056222) * Thanks for the note! Are you using Wordfence specifically? * This doesn’t seem like a good idea to block writing to the uploads directory. I’d like to replicate this issue. * Thread Starter [StevenWoolston](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stevenwoolston/) * (@stevenwoolston) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14056352) * I am sure an exception could be applied to the firewall rules but that kind of defeats the purpose. * The exception is was getting was very unhelpful. It was something like ‘could not restore {file name}’ and then appended ‘[Object Object]’. * I can’t imagine that you could circumvent the firewall. Are you using the WP core methods to read/write to the uploads folder? I haven’t checked the code. * Plugin Author [Kuba Mikita](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kubitomakita/) * (@kubitomakita) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14056930) * Yes, we are using WP Filesystem in our plugin. Will test the restoration process with Wordfence then. * Plugin Author [Kuba Mikita](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kubitomakita/) * (@kubitomakita) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14066633) * [@stevenwoolston](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stevenwoolston/) we checked this one more time and tried to replicate it with Wordfence with no luck. Are you able to share your Wordfence configuration? * Also confirmed we are using just the PHP `rename()` function which moves the file into uploads dir. So if that’s not possible, any other operation in the uploads directory shouldn’t be possible as well. * Thread Starter [StevenWoolston](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stevenwoolston/) * (@stevenwoolston) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14066673) * I have to apologise for this because I don’t think it’s actually an issue. I had problems doing the restore originally and thought it was FW related but I think the actual issue was to do with the file path in the postmeta table for the media items. I raised another topic related to this and I think THAT was the reason for the exception. I mentioned in that other topic that I migrate data between different environments with different physical media locations. So when the database is updated in the new site, the path to the _ew-backup folder is wrong. I fixed the path and all works ok. * Once again, apologies for the red herring. * Plugin Author [Kuba Mikita](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kubitomakita/) * (@kubitomakita) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14066675) * Ha! This makes sense! Anyway, it was worth checking 🙂 * Thank you * Thread Starter [StevenWoolston](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stevenwoolston/) * (@stevenwoolston) * [5 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14071689) * Should there always be records with _ew-backup location values in postmeta for media attachments? There is something going on with my db and I’m sure it’s related to the initial issue I had with environment syncing. I was able to restore originals successfully but when I try to re-apply the watermark I get an exception. I checked the postmeta table and now I don’t have records with _ew-backup any more. Weirdly enough, the watermark IS applied even though I get the exception. So I can apply the watermark if I do ‘Bulk Select’ and select one at a time (which is very labour intensive). Thoughts? * Plugin Author [Kuba Mikita](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kubitomakita/) * (@kubitomakita) * [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14090300) * This can be related to the issue with had with an upgrader. The fix was released today in version 1.0.10 Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) The topic ‘Firewall restrictions’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/easy-watermark/assets/icon.svg?rev=2153955) * [Easy Watermark](https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-watermark/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-watermark/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/easy-watermark/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/easy-watermark/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/easy-watermark/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/easy-watermark/reviews/) * 8 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Kuba Mikita](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kubitomakita/) * Last activity: [5 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/firewall-restrictions/#post-14090300) * Status: resolved