Thanks @fastrak that is very helpful, any ideas on we can test this on Woocommerce? Also what version of PHP were you testing with? Thanks again for your helpful input.
@fastrak,
Thanks for the input.
Sounding like this “is” a HostGator issue.
@drnick2,
By any chance do you use the Really Simple SSL plugin on your site?
@wooguy not on that woocommerce website but I do have it installed on a different website same server. Let me explain because it sounds confusing. For example I have it installed on mywebsite.com using WordPress but Woocommerce is installed on mywebsite.com/shop and does not have this plugin. That particular plugin was installed months ago with none of the problems we are experiencing.
On a side note but I feel it is connected to this problem, I have the plugin simple contact form on both websites and when a visitor sends the contact form from either site, the IP of Hostgator is shown but right underneath that the host IP address is listed and it is that of the sender. Below is an example:
IP: 192.185.152.138
Host: 172.56.40.53
This all started out of the blue, one day no problems, the next day problems, with no plugins added and I do not recall anything was updated.
Thanks drnick2,
I asked because I also run that plugin on a test site and I figured I could remove it and go back to http and not https.
I could do some test orders and see if I get the real customer IP.
I’m just thinking along the lines of what fastrack stated….. unless I’m just beating a dead horse with this idea.
The only other solution I can think of is find another host.
@wooguy its worth a try, I’m going to do some testing tomorrow with some of the plugins I am using to see if there are any that might be causing the problem, but as I mentioned before I have just about the same plugins on another Woocommerce site hosted on Namecheap with no issues, so as you stated previously it is beginning to sound like a Hostgator issue before I move everything to Namecheap or another host, I hope Hostgator can sort this out for us.
I am not an expert at this but I think it is a problem with the update that Hostgator did. It looks like it started when they upgraded EasyApache. I see the issue with WordPress through my Sucuri Alerts reporting server addresses as reported ips, Joomla reporting server addresses as failed login ips while the apache logs report the correct addresses. Also in php testing, I see that the x-forwarded-for reports the server address if I use SSL but works normally if I don’t. Assuming that Hostgator has some kind of proxy, the x-forwarded-for should be an array of ips including the client and the proxies. So if they are terminating the SSL at the proxy and injecting the X-forward-for with the wrong information, it would explain what we are seeing. Now how to convince Hostgator the problem is on their end or above.
Here are some articles that shed some light:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Forwarded-For#Format
https://www.f5.com/company/blog/security-rule-zero-a-warning-about-x-forwarded-for
https://devcentral.f5.com/articles/using-quotx-forwarded-forquot-in-apache-or-php
Thanks @fastrak you might be on to something, I will pass this on to Hostgator tomorrow. A similar issue started with WP Statistics two days ago as all the visits are from Hostgators IP address with only one visitor which also is them.
Thanks @fastrak,
Sounds like that’s exactly what’s going on.
When I contacted Hostgator they said-
“We found that this issue began to occur between February 21, 2019 at 4:20 pm PST and February 22, 2019 at 8:05 am PST. During this window of a timeframe, I found that the only major change to occur was an upgrade from EasyApache 3 to EasyApache 4. Unfortunately when cPanel is updated to use EasyApache 4, it is a server-wide change, of which we do not plans of reverting.”
This is when the problem started for our site and we did not do any updates that might have affected it.
Like you said it a matter of getting them to help out on this problem if it’s possible.
Plugin Support
John Coy a11n
(@johndcoy)
Automattic Happiness Engineer
This is an issue with Hostgator and their web server. They have been adding this to help their user:
# diff wp-config.php wp-config.php.1552418217.bak
// Code for showing correct client IP address
if ( isset( $_SERVER[‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR’] ) ) {
$mte_xffaddrs = explode( ‘,’, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR’] );
$_SERVER[‘REMOTE_ADDR’] = $mte_xffaddrs[0];
They’ll need to fix this on their web server for all users though.
@johndcoy, thanks, are you suggesting to add this to the wp-config.php file?
Thanks again.
@drnick,
I also sent an email to the System admin that originally gave me the information I posted.
I included the information from @johndcoy “thank you”.
Will let you know what comes of that.
Looks like the same code you posted from Hostgator that did not work.
Hope this will solve it one way or the other.
@wooguy Same code that does not work, just received an email from Hostgator telling me that they added that code to my wp-config, which as you know they did last week. Created IP problems with Wordfence and did not fix customer IP issue, so I just deleted it, they feel it is a Woocommerce problem. So back to the drawing board.
@drnick2,
Sorry to hear that.
I have not heard back yet but sounds like there might be only one solution and that would be moving to another hosting company.
It’s too bad because I really like Hostgator and codeguard but I need the correct customer IP.
Here’s hoping a solution can be found without that.
.
I can confirm with reasonable certainty that this is not a WooCommerce issue. I have tried Magento, OpenCart, PrestaShop and had the same problem with each.
I just got this from Hostgator:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Hostgator Support.
At this moment I was able to review the issue and information provided via the email responses and you are correct, the issue is taking place because of the current update from ea3 to ea4. This issue has been address and we currently have a team of Sr. administrators working on resolving the issue, allow us some time in order to implement a fix on the whole shared server environment in order for the functionality of your site to continue as it’s intended.
If you have any further questions or concerns please let us know via this case escalation or contact us via chat or phone support.
Best Regards,
Josue Z.
HostGator.com LLC
