W3 Total Cache crashed my site

  • Resolved almostginger

    (@almostginger)


    3 years, 7 months ago

    Hello,

    I just wanted to make you aware (and see if there is anything you could do to help) that on July 15th (I know I’m a bit late!) the W3 Total Cache Plugin crashed my site and it took my host two days to fix the problem. I couldn’t log into my dashboard or anything until they fixed it and lost two days of traffic.

    They had to rename public_html/wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache to w3-total-cache.bak

    They also had to rename the following files with .bak:

    public_html/wp-content/db.php
    public_html/wp-content/advanced-cache.php
    public_html/wp-content/object-cache.php

    So of course, the Plugin at the moment is inactive and I cannot update/reactivate in it’s the current state.

    I’d like to know how to move forward with this. I like the Plugin to help with site speed but I’m very wary of deleting it and downloading it again in case the same thing were to happen.

    What are my options at this point? Do you know why this happened, was it the settings/theme for example?

    Thanks very much,
    Rebecca

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    3 years, 7 months ago

    Hello @almostginger

    I am sorry about the issue you are experiencing and I am happy to assist you with this

    Please follow the instructions below to completely remove W3 Total Cache (this includes all .bak files) .

    1. Check .htaccess File (make backup)
    W3TC will create many directives in the .htaccess file to control caching behavior. Each section will start and end with comments like “#BEGIN W3TC Page Cache core” and “#END W3TC Page Cache core”.
    Ensure that no residual entries are leftover in your .htaccess file after deleting the plugin.
    2. Delete wp-content files and folders
    – cache folder
    – w3tc-config folder
    – object-cache.php (if exists)
    – advanced-cache.php (if exists)
    – dbcache.php (if exists)
    – upgrade folder
    – delete w3-total-cache folder in wp-content/plugins/ (if exists)
    3. Delete Cached Files from CDN (if using CDN)
    Besides deleting all the relevant files, if you use CDN then ensure to purge the cached content from your CDN. This is necessary when you enabled the minify option in W3TC settings. You should delete the minified and combined scripts and CSS files from your CDN server to avoid the site breaking on the browser.
    4. Go to your wp dashboard and re-install W3 Total Cache

    We cannot know why this might have happened and we could have troubleshot more if you reported the issue right away. SO possibly there was a conflict with some other plugin, or something similar.
    Make sure that you are not using any other caching/minify solution.
    Please let me know if this helps and If you have any other questions.
    Thanks!

    mikeb8s

    (@mikeb8s)

    3 years, 7 months ago

    I had the exact same issue last week. I went through the steps listed above. I then installed W3TC again from scratch and configured it as before (as working for 1+ year).

    The next day, the same thing occurred again.

    At this point, I do not feel confident re-enabling the plugin unless there is fix or work-around forthcoming. I think that the problem started with the last W3TC update.

    Wordpress and all other plugins are up-to-date with the latest versions. My site is running on an InMotionHosting shared server.

    I just wanted to acknowledge that others are seeing the same issue.

    Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    3 years, 7 months ago

    Hello @mikeb8s

    Thank you for the information.
    We are working with the IMH to resolve this. At this point, the bottleneck of the issue you are experiencing as mentioned in the other thread related to this is the DB Caching and Object Caching on shared hosting when caching to Disk.
    Please make sure not to user DB caching or OC caching (Disk caching method) if on shared hosting as it’s not recommended to use this anyway if you don’t have VPS or a Dedicated server.
    Thanks!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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