Receiving 503 Error Upon Admin Login

Resolved Schmee
(@schmee)

11 months, 2 weeks ago
Greetings – first of all thank you for a fantastic security solution – we’re a non-profit org and have been using your free version of WordFence for years.

Our issue is that upon login via our core admin account, we are receiving a 503 error:
- It is not affecting public service
- We have not made any changes to our site settings
- Disabling the WF plugin (via renaming the WF folder) allows us to access. We then immediately reactivate the plugin (this was tested with all other plugins disabled).
- We have a second site (identical WF settings and same host) which is not experiencing this issue.
- Checking the ‘Live Traffic’ report I see no ‘503’ responses attached to my IP – rather it is displayed as a successful 200 response.
- We have also cleared all host-related caches (we are not using a plugin), and have had our site’s ram increased.
Searching this support site and beyond I see there’s been recently reported similar issues but no clear solutions – would you have any recommended next steps to trouble-shoot?

Thank you!

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

Plugin Support wfscott
(@wfscott)

11 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello, @schmee

Can you please confirm your hosting provider for me? Are you seeing any other details for the 503 error on the page itself, in your PHP error logs, or other log files?

If you’re not seeing anything stand out with the above, I recommend re-enabling the plugin and trying to log in again. You can then reach out to your host to see if they’ve noticed any database errors or if they can provide any information.

Additionally, could you please send over the diagnostics? You can do that via the Wordfence > Tools > Diagnostics page using the Send Report by Email button. Please email those to the wftest @ wordfence . com address with your forum username included in the appropriate field.

Thanks,
Scott

Thread Starter Schmee
(@schmee)

11 months, 1 week ago

Hello Scott – thank you for your reply – it is much appreciated.

Hello, @schmee

Can you please confirm your hosting provider for me?

Our current hosting provider is hosting.com – our previous provider was acquired by hosting.com earlier this year, however that was several months back.

Are you seeing any other details for the 503 error on the page itself, in your PHP error logs, or other log files?

It is a standard ‘503’ server unavailable error with no additional info.

Checking my PHP logs I see no related errors.

Checking with my provider – they were not able to offer any log issues, however they were able to properly log into the WP admin account.

If you’re not seeing anything stand out with the above, I recommend re-enabling the plugin and trying to log in again. You can then reach out to your host to see if they’ve noticed any database errors or if they can provide any information.

WF has been running: I disabled WF in order to log into WP, and then re-enabled it once logged in.

If helpful:

– I white-listed my local IP address to WF’s firewall – this did not resolve anything

– I tested WF by logging in with an incorrect admin username: I was successfully blocked (i.e. is running properly).

– It appears that WF scan requests are now timing out (have tried this several times).

– I’v re-checked all my WF settings against my other website: All are identical

Additionally, could you please send over the diagnostics? You can do that via the *Wordfence > Tools > Diagnostics* page using the *Send Report by Email* button. Please email those to the wftest @ wordfence . com address with your forum username included in the appropriate field.

Unfortunately the ‘Tools > Diagnostics’ page does not render (it is blank). I do however have the ability to email the ’scan activity log’ (to ‘wftest’).

~ Billy

Thread Starter Schmee
(@schmee)

11 months, 1 week ago

An addendum: Activating debug logging we did receive this entry when attempting to log in:

[29-Jun-2025 18:44:48 UTC] PHP Warning: mysqli_real_connect(): Headers and client library minor version mismatch. Headers:100148 Library:30125 in /home/*****/public_html/xj17/wp-includes/class-wpdb.php on line 1988

Am not sure if this is related to our issue.

Thank you,
~ Billy

Bankim
(@bankimchandra)

11 months, 1 week ago

+1 Having similar issue I am with hosting.com Warning: mysqli_real_connect(): Headers and client library minor version mismatch. Headers:100148 Library:30125 in /home/——-/public_html/wp-includes/class-wpdb.php on line 1988

Bankim
(@bankimchandra)

11 months, 1 week ago

Resolved by my Hosting company Hosting.com

Warning: mysqli_real_connect(): Headers and client library minor version mismatch. Headers:XXLibrary:XXin /home/________/public_html/wp-includes/class-wpdb.php on line 1988

I have enabled MySQLnd extension from cPanel > Select PHP version and successfully activated WordFence now

I hope this helps others

Thread Starter Schmee
(@schmee)

11 months, 1 week ago

@bankimchandra – thank you for your post.

Unfortunately (for my issue) my MySQLnd extension was already enabled.

Plugin Support wfscott
(@wfscott)

11 months, 1 week ago

Thanks for the information @schmee and @bankimchandra

Can you confirm which PHP version you’re using and which of the MySQL extensions are currently enabled, as far as mysqli, mysqlnd, and nd_mysqli? The PHP version and extensions are on the “PHP Selector” page in cPanel. Keep in mind that we recommend only changing settings that you’re comfortable with and have the ability to revert. You can also check with your host for help making any changes if necessary.

Currently, we cannot reproduce this issue on our A2 test site on a few PHP versions, but with additional details, we may be able to narrow down the cause.

Thread Starter Schmee
(@schmee)

11 months, 1 week ago

Hello @wfscott – thank you for your reply.

We’re running 8.1

mysqli: Active
mysqlnd: Active
nd_mysqli: Cannot activate due to a ‘conflict’ notice (most likely with mysqli)

Plugin Support wfscott
(@wfscott)

11 months, 1 week ago

Thanks, @schmee.

Can you confirm if the server is running Apache, LiteSpeed, Nginx, or something else?

Do you know if you had the latest Wordfence version 8.0.5 installed already before you logged in and started seeing the issue?

If you’re able to temporarily disable other plugins and enable only Wordfence, please confirm if the issue still occurs. If the issues are no longer present, knowing which plugin reintroduces the issue will be helpful.

If the diagnostics area is still not working, can you please go to the Tools -> Site Health section, and there, use the “copy to clipboard” button on the “Info” tab. Please send that over to [email protected] directly with your forum username in the subject. Let us know here when that is sent, and we’ll take a look.

Thanks,
Scott

Plugin Support wfscott
(@wfscott)

11 months, 1 week ago

@schmee I wanted to send over an update that we saw in another topic that updating PHP to PHP 8.4 has helped another user. This looks to be specific to the configuration of a few hosting providers and may have stemmed from a PHP or cPanel update there, a change in a cPanel extension, an OS update, or similar with these hosts and their configuration. We have many users on these versions of PHP without any issues. I recommend checking with your host and making sure backups are in place before making any changes.

Thanks,
Scott

Thread Starter Schmee
(@schmee)

11 months, 1 week ago

Hello @wfscott

Updating to PHP 8.3 appears to have resolved the issue (our host does not offer 8.4) as the 503 error is no longer reported on login.

We will monitor our site for any continuing issues.

Thank you for your assistance – it is greatly appreciated.
~ Billy

Plugin Support wfscott
(@wfscott)

11 months, 1 week ago

Thanks for confirming. I’ll mark the ticket here as resolved, however, feel free to reach out if you run into any issues.

Thanks,
Scott

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

The topic ‘Receiving 503 Error Upon Admin Login’ is closed to new replies.