Wordfence locked myself out of my WordPress site

  • dobby14

    (@dobby14)


    7 years, 1 month ago

    Hello,
    after installing wordfence last week I tried to login to the backend of my website https://bibelwelt.de and it didn’t work. I was locked out.

    I read the helping page about “locking himself out of once own homepage”, but in the e-mail from wordfence was no “Reason” for locking me out, but only these words:

    This email was sent from your website “Bibelwelt” by the Wordfence plugin at Monday 20th of March 2017 at 10:00:10 AM
    The Wordfence administrative URL for this site is: https://bibelwelt.de/wp-admin/admin.php?page=Wordfence
    A user with username “hs-14_bw-wp” who has administrator access signed in to your WordPress site.
    User IP: 2003:dd:fbc3:9400:e52e:5a65:6505:610a
    User hostname: p200300DDFBC39400E52E5A656505610A.dip0.t-ipconnect.de
    User location: Giessen, Germany

    Then I followed the advice to rename the wordfence-folder (and cache-plugins, too), but the only effect is: I get no more e-ails from wordfence, but can’t still login to my website.

    What can I do?
    Helmut

Viewing 15 replies - 46 through 60 (of 62 total)
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  • Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello wfphil,
    today I could login to both sites again. Now I changed my staging site’s theme into the 2016 theme – although many items of my site don’t work with it – but that’s not the point now, for I want to see, if the login failure will occur with this theme as well.

    But what if my “leeway” theme by themezee is definitely the cause for my problems. Will I have to look for a different theme? I was so happy with the items of “leeway” such as two menues and a nice tag cloud and so on.

    Or might there be a way to find out which part of the theme interferes with wordfence functionality and fix the problem?

    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Just an addendum:
    Today I can login to both sites, but ON MY STAGING SITE (with theme 2016) Wordfence reacts to my login with an email like the ones I get if I cannot login. On my normal site (with theme leeway child) I get no Wordfence email.

    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    So to clarify – on the staging site you have the 2016 theme active and all plugins have been disabled by re-naming all of the plugin folders in your WordPress installation?

    Can you forward the email to phil [@] wordfence [dot] com please.

    Thank you.

    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello wfphil,
    I mailed to your address, but I don’t know if you got the mail…

    As to your question: On my staging site I have the 2016 theme active AND all plugins active AND can login AND get a mail from Wordfence that I have logged in.

    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    I didn’t receive the email if you want to try and email it again.

    What I would do is this. As you disabled all plugins on the staging site and the problem was still there then this strongly suggests that the theme is the cause of the problem. I would disable all the plugins on the staging site and activate the suspect theme in question. Wait for the problem to return where you can’t login. Switch to 2016 theme and see if you can login. If you can login then switch to the suspect theme and see if you can login. If you can’t then that shows with a very high probability that the theme is causing the conflict.

    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello wfphil,
    thank you for your advice.

    Unfortunately, when I just tried to follow your advice, I couldn’t login to both sites again. Although the suspected theme (Leeway) is not active on the staging site, I can’t get logged in. Does that mean: The theme Leeway is not the cause for the problem as well? Or can it be the interaction of the theme and some plugin?

    As for the Email: Whenever I tried to send you one, it didn’t reach you. My address is: helmut-schuetz@onlinehome.de – can you find it in your spams?

    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    If you did successfully disable all plugins on the staging site, then that did point to the theme being a likely cause of the problem.

    But, if the Leeway theme is inactive on the staging site and the problem still exists then you may have a WordPress problem.

    I would try removing all WordPress files and directories on the staging site and manually upload a fresh copy of all WordPress files and directories via FTP on the staging site.

    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello wfphil,
    this advice seems to me lika a random shot – and not so easy to perform. And who says that it is not the database or some interacting plugins?

    I would just like to know whether you think that the problem has nothing to do with wordfence at all – OR with an interaction between my wordpress installation and wordfence. In the first case I would be logged out even if I would deactivate the wordfence plugin. But before activating wordfence I never had the problem.

    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 11 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    No, it is not random advice at all.

    You have disabled all plugins on the staging site and you couldn’t login – this suggests the Leeway theme maybe the cause.

    This is why I suggested with all plugins disabled on the staging site to then switch to a default WordPress theme such as 2016 to being the active theme.

    If at this point you still can’t login then that suggests that there is a problem with your WordPress installation as you have no active plugins and Leeway theme is inactive.

    I did ask you this previously but I didn’t receive a confirmation:

    So to clarify – on the staging site you have the 2016 theme active and all plugins have been disabled by re-naming all of the plugin folders in your WordPress installation?

    I need to know exactly what you have done and what is happening as you have an intermittent problem which makes diagnosis more difficult.

    This is what I want you to do slowly and methodically on the staging site please, with a full and complete report:

    Ensure that you have the Leeway theme as the active theme.

    Disable ALL plugins as follows by changing their directory names (I have given a few examples below from your actual plugin list):

    ~/wp-content/plugins/wordfence-disabled

    ~/wp-content/plugins/autoptimize-disabled

    ~/wp-content/plugins/worker-disabled

    Once ALL plugins are disabled on the staging site wait until you are unable to login.
    You have said that you have already done this and you were unable to login in the past.

    With ALL plugins disabled and you reach a point in time where you can’t login then this suggests that the Leeway theme may be the cause.

    Switch to 2016 theme. If you still can’t login then this strongly suggest that you have a problem with your WordPress installation. If you can login, with 2016 theme, then this provides more evidence that it may be the Leeway theme. BUT, it could be the case that the intermittent problem has gone so it may be the case that the further evidence is not accurate. So you need to run this test below to clarify this further evidence due to the problem being intermittent:

    ALL plugins disabled with Leeway theme active and cannot login.
    Switch to 2016 theme and can login.
    Switch back to Leeway theme and cannot login.
    Switch back to 2016 theme and can login.
    Switch back to Leeway theme and cannot login.
    Switch back to 2016 theme and can login.

    If you see this behaviour then this is incredibly strong evidence that the Leeway theme is the cause of the problem and you will have to reach out to their developers.

    I will point out again if ALL plugins are disabled with 2016 theme active and you can’t login then this strongly suggests that there is a problem with WordPress itself. If this is what happens then we have one final test but first please provide me with a full and complete report of the thorough tests above done on the staging site.

    Thank you.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by wfphil. Reason: grammar
    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 10 months ago

    Sorry wfphil,
    it seems that I missed some of these steps out. So I will do again thoroughly. But at the time being, I CAN login to my staging site (whereas not to my normal site), so I’ll wait and see and get back to you if I know more.
    I thank YOU for your patience!

    Oh, just this question: I think theme switching only is possible from inside my backend, is it? I can’t do it in a similar way as with the plugins by renaming directories or so? Am I right or is there a way to do it with FileZilla?

    Helmut

    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 10 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    No need to apologise, been a pleasure to guide you.

    Yes, on the staging site to change the theme you will have to be able to login to WordPress and change the theme normally from the menu: Appearance >> Themes

    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 10 months ago

    Hello wfphil,
    I tried all your steps (except replacing all WordPress files and directories) and ended up with the following result:

    1. Some days I could login and some days not (both in my main site and my staging site).

    2. In the case I could not login, there was no way to change this behaviour. Even when I renamed all plugins or all themes, I could not login.

    3. When I could login again on 7th June, I not only deactivated Wordfence, but removed the plugin completely from my main site, but not from my staging site.

    4. Since then I could login every day to both sites – my main site WITHOUT Wordfence, and my staging site WITH Wordfence. And each time when I logged into my staging site, I got a message from Wordfence that I had just signed in.

    I think this proves that the login problems have nothing to do with my WordPress files and directories as such. In any case, it must be an interaction between the WordPress plugin and some part of my WordPress installation.

    Is there any tool which would allow me to track every step which is taken forward before I login (or am denied to login) to my admin dashboard? Tools like Query Monitor only show what happens after having logged in.

    Best regards
    Helmut

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by dobby14.
    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 9 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I have been very busy.

    Thank you for the feedback.

    With point number [2] if all plugins have effectively been disabled by re-naming them; switching to a default theme and the problem still occurs then that may indicate the problem lies in your WordPress installation somewhere.

    In point [4] you mentioned “WordPress plugin“. Can you clarify what plugin please?

    To eliminate Wordfence on the “Staging” site as the cause can you carry out the following please:

    Go to the Wordfence “Diagnostics” tab on the “Tools” page.

    Click on the text link “Click to view your system’s configuration in a new window“. Scroll down to the “Core” section and check that the “log_errors” PHP directive is enabled. If it isn’t ask your hosting provider to enable it for you.

    Disable all plugins, except Wordfence, by re-naming their directories and switch to a default theme such as 2016.

    Enable the option “Delete Wordfence tables and data on deactivation” on the Wordfence “Options” page.

    Save the “Options” page.

    De-activate and then uninstall Wordfence from the WordPress plugins page.

    This will completely remove all Wordfence files and database tables.

    Wait to see if the problem returns. If it does then you know it isn’t Wordfence.

    As you have all plugins disabled, an active default theme and Wordfence completely removed, coupled with being unable to login, then look in your PHP error logs to see if that gives you any clues. One error log will be in the root directory of your WordPress installation and the other will be in your “wp-admin” directory.

    Thread Starter dobby14

    (@dobby14)

    6 years, 9 months ago

    Hello wfphil,
    thank you for answering that thoroughly.

    As for the mentioned “WordPress plugin” it was an error in writing, I meant “Wordfence plugin”.

    The log_errors PHP is turned OFF in my WordPress installation; for that issue I will contact my provider.

    But on the whole the problem which I just have is that since a whole month (since I removed Wordfence from my main site) there was no login problem at all – both on the main AND the staging site (and I tried every single day). So I don’t know how long I should wait until the problem might occur again. Or if it was only a problem on my main site, caused by whatever it might be.

    And I definitively don’t feel like experimenting with Wordfence on my main site at the time being, because I am just putting many new posts on my homepage every day.

    Plugin Support wfphil

    (@wfphil)

    6 years, 9 months ago

    Hello Helmut,

    Thank you for the feedback.

    The difficulty that we have is that it is an intermittent problem with no apparent reason for it happening.

    The great thing about having the cloned staging site is that you can at least run experiments without having to touch the main site and affect your site visitors by disabling plugins and changing theme etc.

    All of the instructions in my last message are to be done on the staging site. If the problem returns and Wordfence has been comepletely removed then we can rule that out as the cause.

    Also having error logging enabled may offer some clues if the same PHP errors are generated when you can’t log in.

Viewing 15 replies - 46 through 60 (of 62 total)
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