Title: Widget Update Error
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Widget Update Error

 *  Resolved [greaterweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greaterweb/)
 * (@greaterweb)
 * [16 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/widget-update-error/)
 * A client of mine appears to have surfaced a bug when saving updates to a widget.
   This bug was originally discovered through an update to a custom slider widget
   I had developed. Further testing has replicated the issue with other widgets 
   including the basic WordPress text widget.
 * Turns out widget text (text `input` or `textarea`) cannot contain the words _select_
   and _from_, specifically in that order. An error remains present even if words
   are inserted between the two such as _I selected WordPress as the best software
   from Automattic_. Reversing the order of words will not trigger an error.
 * **To Replicate**
    Place a text widget in one of your widget areas. Enter the 
   text _select from_ in either the title or main textarea box. Hit save and the
   circular icon will pop up (as expected), though as the ajax update fails the 
   icon remains present.
 * I was still able to replicate the issue even after disabling all plugins and 
   reverting to the default WordPress theme.
 * **The Error**
    It seems pretty apparent that we have a bit SQL Injection prevention
   kicking in. I have tested this on two separate client sites and did some ajax
   debugging with the aid of Firebug. What is odd is one site makes the request 
   to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php and gets a `500 Internal Server Error`. An identical
   test on a second site return a `404 Not Found` for the wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
   request. Both of these sites reside on the same web server.
 * As an additional debugging measure, on the site with the `500 Internal Server
   Error`, I stripped out the entire contents of the wp-admin/admin-ajax.php file.
   The same `500 Internal Server Error` is returned for the ajax request. So we 
   are choking somewhere before we actually get to the php file. I’ll poke around
   some javascript next.
 * I couldn’t find a ticket for anything similar on Trac but was curious if anyone
   else could replicate or had additional information to share.
 * Thanks!
 * -Ron

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [James Collins](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jamescollins/)
 * (@jamescollins)
 * [16 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/widget-update-error/#post-1473365)
 * As per [http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/13090#comment:1](http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/13090#comment:1),
   this sounds like a mod_security issue.
 * Ron, were you able to solve the problem?
 *  Thread Starter [greaterweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greaterweb/)
 * (@greaterweb)
 * [16 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/widget-update-error/#post-1473375)
 * Yes, James, I was able to resolve the issue with updates to mod_security. Thank
   you for your assistance!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Widget Update Error’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

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

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [greaterweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greaterweb/)
 * Last activity: [16 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/widget-update-error/#post-1473375)
 * Status: resolved

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