Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
You can restore the root htaccess file from the automated file backup that BlueHost does: https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/166
Or if you only ran the Setup Wizard once, then you should find a backup of the old root htaccess file here: /wp-content/bps-backup/master-backups/root.htaccess
Normally you only need to delete the root htaccess file to be able to log back into the site, so it sounds like there is something else going on. Probably some sort of htaccess code conflict if the problem is actually a problem with htaccess files/code.
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
VERY IMPORTANT: I looked at the Source Code of the cached Home page for this website and this site has Revolution Slider 4.1 installed, which has a known critical security vulnerability. I believe the 4.2 version has patched that security vulnerability.
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
I see the site is back up and you upgraded to Revolution Slider 5.0. I assume this thread can be resolved?
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
Hmm I see 2 – 403 errors occurring for these 2 plugin scripts below, but I cannot tell if you still have BPS installed since the 403 errors are generic errors and not the BPS 403 template page.
/premium-double-opt-in-for-download/public/assets/css/widget-style.php
/premium-double-opt-in-for-download/public/assets/css/form-style.php
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
Ok yeah you still have BPS installed. So check your BPS Security Log and post the Security Log entry for each of these 403 errors so that I can post a whitelist rule for whatever is being blocked. I assume a simple plugin skip/bypass rule is needed to fix/whitelist this plugin. I have downloaded the free version of this plugin: Double Opt-In for Download to test it and see if the same 403 errors are occurring.
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
I did not see any 403 errors when testing the free version of this plugin, but I could not figure out how to actually get a download after filling in the optin form and clicking the email link that is sent – basically nothing happens.
Yes I was able to get the website back up yesterday morning. My hunch is that it was related to the WP Performance Speed Booster plugin, but I’m not entirely sure. After I got the website back up, I had all the plugins deactivated. I was able to install BPS without any problem. I was reactivated the plugins one by one to see if there would be any conflict. When I tried to reinstall WP Performance Speed Booster, the htaccess file went blank. Clearly, the WP Performance Speed Booster plugin was attempting to write to the file, but it wasn’t working. I do know how to add custom code to htaccess using BPS, but since the behavior of the plugin was odd I decided to drop it altogether.
The 403 error you are seeing is not related to BPS. The plugin requires a valid license key which I did not have. The site owner needs to put that in for the error to go away. But thanks for doing a little detective work into that.
I am very happy with your plugin and use it across multiple websites. It’s a great plugin and thanks for the amazing support!
To be more clear, I was able to recover the website from the white screen of death by deleting wp-config.php and relying on WordPress to walk through database connection using wp-config-sample.php. It was pretty strange and I don’t have a proper explanation for it. I tried all kinds of things to get the site back up without success: renaming the plugins directory, renaming the theme to force wordpress to use the default, updated core, deleted htaccess, put the default htaccess language back in, increased memory in wp-config. None of these things brought the website back up. It wasn’t until I deleted wp-config.php from the server entirely. I then walked through the steps to set up a new wp-config.php in the browser.
I think it was a coincidence that the website went down at the moment I was clicking setup wizard for BPS. They have been experiencing other problems like timeouts, which is why they asked for my help. I can see in the logs that they have some unwanted bot traffic on xmlrpc. It’s not as high as I’ve seen on other websites, but certainly could be affecting performance because they are in a shared hosting environment. There’s still work to do but your plugin is a great start, THANKS!
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
Is this the plugin? If so, I will install and test it and see what is going on.
WP Performance Score Booster: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/wp-performance-score-booster/
My guess of what caused the problem is that the WP Performance Score Booster adds code to your wp-config.php file like a lot of other caching plugins do and also creates htaccess code in your root htaccess file. So if the htaccess code was not in the root htaccess file and the wp-config.php file did have the caching code in it then it could definitely cause a white screen of death. I will know more once I test this plugin.
Since you had an old version of Revolution Slider installed, which had a known security vulnerability, you should thoroughly check that the site is not infected/hacked. A white screen of death can also be caused by removing some hacker’s code somewhere in a file and other hacker’s files/code that is using that code will cause the site to crash/white screen because that code is dependent code needed to run the other hacker’s code. Reinstalling WordPress on the Dashboard > Updates > Re-Install now will replace/install all new WordPress Core files and then you should use FTP or your web host control panel file manager and look around in all the hosting account folders for any files that look supicious. Also check your theme folders/files.
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
I went ahead and tested the WP Performance Score Booster plugin and found some issues/bugs. I posted my test results in the plugin author’s support forum: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/topic/wordpress-rewrite-block-of-htaccess-code-missing-from-root-htaccess-file?replies=1#post-7625914
Since this plugin is just creating Browser caching htaccess code there is no additional code added/created in the wp-config.php file.
I have done all the things you recommended, plus ran the Sucuri scanner which gave a clean bill of health. I deleted a bunch of files on the server that weren’t necessary for basic operation. But will take another look to be sure I caught everything. The site owner still reports timeouts, and can’t pull the website up at his location even after clearing his cache which is weird. I think our next step is to diagnose the logs, and seek support with Blue Host. But I will read more about Rev slider exploit too.
Thank you for testing and following up with WP Performance Score Booster. Once again, you’ve gone the extra mile. We really appreciate all your advice!
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
Meant to mention this which is killing any chance of decent website performance/load speeds. Total number of Requests is ok: 40 Requests. Load Speed is horrible: 49.68s (onload: 47.49s). Total size of all content on the home page is: 8.1MB which is horrible. Ideally you want to keep total size around 500KB (initial load) or less. The problem is being caused by image files that are extremely large and not optimized and image file loading is not deferred or lazy loaded.
This image file is 1256×989 and 2.6MB in size
urbanfarmplans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Wood.png
Saving the file in Photoshop as a Progressive JPEG at 60 resolution makes the total size of the new jpg file: 592KB.
Then the bigger problem is that these image files are all being loaded on initial page load instead of being deferred or doing a “lazy load”.
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
After the site is cached your are getting load speeds of: 7.07s (onload: 8.95s) which is still pretty bad, but no one is probably going to wait around for the initial page load of 49 seconds to complete. And of course bad load speed will kill any chance of getting any high search engine page ranking positions for any Posts on this site.
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
On this inner page: urbanfarmplans.com/installation/ 1 unoptimized image file is causing a 7.44 second page load delay. The total page load time is: 10.52s (onload: 9.66s). so once that image file is resized appropriately and optimized then you can subtract 7 seconds from that inner page load time putting it at: 3 to 4 second initial page load time.
Total size of this image file: /wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Installation-300×200.png before resize and optimization is: 758×505 | 827KB.
Resized to 300×200 and optimized as a Progressive JPEG at 60 resolution: 300×200 | 26.3KB
Plugin Author
AITpro
(@aitpro)
Assuming all questions have been answered – thread has been resolved. If you have additional questions about this specific thread topic then you can post them at any time. We still receive email notifications when threads have been resolved.
Thread Start Date: 11-2-2015 to 11-3-2015
Thread Resolved/Current Date: 11-9-2015
