Title: Free API key error
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Free API key error

 *  Resolved [aimotionllc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aimotionllc/)
 * (@aimotionllc)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/)
 * I know Wordfence moved away from providing free API keys via their website, but
   are these still provided via the plugin, and necessary? I am getting the error“
   Wordfence could not get an API key from the Wordfence scanning servers when it
   activated …” in my WP dashboard upon installing the plugin. I checked with my
   server provider (stablehost) and they say that their servers are able to connect
   to Wordfence’s scanning servers (the connectivity test in the options side-tab
   positively confirms this too). I also tried disabling/re-enabling the plugin 
   and deleting Wordfence tables, re-installing the plugin, etc., and nothing seems
   to work.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/)

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Mark Maunder](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmaunder/)
 * (@mmaunder)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/#post-4690903)
 * Yes Wordfence is still free and we used to make you come to our site to get a
   free API key. We changed this to make life a little easier for you so that when
   you install Wordfence as a free customer it automatically gets a free API key
   for you saving you from visiting our site.
 * So for some reason your site can’t connect to our servers and I’d keep bugging
   your host to find out why.
 * If you’d like, and if your host is very technical, you can ask them to send me
   a tcpdump packet sniffing session that I can import into wireshark and I’ll be
   happy to examine what is happening on the wire to diagnose the issue.
 * Regards,
 * Mark.
 *  Thread Starter [aimotionllc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aimotionllc/)
 * (@aimotionllc)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/#post-4690919)
 * Mark,
 * Thank you for your reply. I have just determined the cause of this (via examination
   of the error_log), and it is to neither my host’s fault or yours. The issue is
   with the permissions given to the admin of the SQL database. Typically, for security,
   I only allow SELECT, DELETE, INSERT, and UPDATE. However, this caused Wordfence
   to not operate correctly (probably due to it not being able to create its own
   tables?). Can you tell me the minimum set of permissions that I should to give
   the SQL admin for Wordfence to operate, so that I need not use ALL PERMISSIONS?
 * Thanks.
 *  Plugin Author [Mark Maunder](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmaunder/)
 * (@mmaunder)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/#post-4690950)
 * Hi,
 * Was it the TRUNCATE call that was causing problems? Let me know what the problem
   was and we’ll try to improve it.
 * Regards,
 * Mark.
 *  Thread Starter [aimotionllc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/aimotionllc/)
 * (@aimotionllc)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/#post-4690978)
 * Hi,
 * I have found that is necessary to provide permission to create SQL tables (in
   addition to SELECT, DELETE, INSERT, and UPDATE, which are already needed by WP).
   Things appear to work when either permanent (CREATE) or temporary (CREATE TEMPORARY
   TABLE), or both, creation is allowed. As I don’t know all of the details of what
   is happening in the code, I have just allowed both, and things seem to be working
   fine. I’ll let you know if any other issues arise.
 *  Plugin Author [Mark Maunder](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmaunder/)
 * (@mmaunder)
 * [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/#post-4691011)
 * Yes you need that for most advanced WordPress plugins.
 * Regards,
 * Mark.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Free API key error’ is closed to new replies.

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## Tags

 * [api key](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/api-key/)

 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Mark Maunder](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmaunder/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/free-api-key-error/#post-4691011)
 * Status: resolved