by catpaw | 24 Jan, 2021 | apps | software | stuff, I'm getting too old for this shit
Plugins – not always user friendly
Ah, plugin problems. It’s official, I hate them. Yes, I do. Once again, I found myself spending an afternoon cleaning up a mess from a plugin conflict. I’m still not done with the cleanup. It’ll take rest of the week to repair the damage.
Here’s what happened. I use a great plugin called iThemes Security. It’s an excellent WordPress security plugin and has helped me lockdown the site for nearly 2 years. A few plugins were updated yesterday, but not iThemes. All seemed good when I turned everything off last night. When logged on to work on a new article, it was a mess.
UPDATE:
Tues Jan 26, 2021 – still struggling to put all the images back. Please be patient. I fixed the primary issue and it cascaded into a bigger one, which was resolved. But that fix wiped out the repairs and I had to start over.
The path to the login page no longer existed. Either “a page not found”, or a broken link error appeared. After that familiar sinking feeling settled in, I flipped over and checked to make sure the site still existed. Bitter Grounds was running properly. But nothing I tried brought the login page back to life. I was effectively locked out of the Dashboard.
How to log in when WordPress login won’t load
When locked out of a WordPress site because of a plugin issue, there is a way of recovering the Dashboard:
- Log into the site with either FTP or your web host’s file manager.
- Locate public_html -> wp-content.
- Rename the folder titled plugins. Usually it’s easiest to rename it to plugins_old.
- Once you do this, log back into your WordPress site and test it. If it works properly, then comes the tedious part.
- Back to FTP/File Manager rename plugins_old back to plugins.
- Open the plugins folder and rename every folder, adding _old to each.
- Try each folder, one at a time, by removing the _old from the name.
- Return to WP and test. When you find the culprit, delete that folder.
Because of the type of error message that appeared, I thought it might be iThemes so I disabled the folder. Didn’t work. So I disabled the entire plugin folder. Still no login available.
I had to sit and ponder what was going on. I examined the login link carefully and figured it had something to do with one of the iThemes security features. So, I re-enabled the plugin folder and left iThemes disabled. I then tried a hybrid of the old changed login link and the default one. Bingo! The Dashboard let me in.
I disabled and re-enabled plugins but can’t trace the conflict. I keep getting the same errors, so I removed iThemes completely. I installed a new plugin for the two-factor authentication and tweaked a few new plugins to ensure security is strong. But I’m disappointed because I love iThemes and hate to say goodbye to it, especially when the root of the problem was a conflict with a different plugin. When I have time, I’ll go back to iThemes and do a fresh re-install.
New plugin problems created
Removing iThemes created a new problem though and this one pisses me off. At least 2/3 of the links to images were wiped out. I spent the last 3 hours reconnecting them. I have over 570 articles to check and it’s tedious. It could have been far worse. I haven’t finished yet, so if you run into a page with place holders instead of photos, be patient. I’ll get to them this week. I’ve done as many as I can today, and my brain just can’t do any more.
Cheers and hope your week is conflict free
Catpaw
Read more about my WP efforts:
https://bittergrounds.com/evolution-of-a-blogger-2/
by catpaw | 29 May, 2019 | apps | software | stuff, I'm getting too old for this shit
If you own a website, chances are high you’ve received the Dear CEO scam email:
This scam has been hanging around for over years.
It reads:
Dear CEO,
(It’s very urgent, please transfer this email to your CEO. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hua Hai Ltd on May 14, 2019. They want to register ” _______________ ” as their Internet Keyword and ” _______________ .cn “、” _______________.com.cn ” 、” _______________ .net.cn “、” _______________ .org.cn ” 、” _______________ .asia “domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” _______________ ” conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?
Best Regards
**************************************
Mike Zhang | Service Manager
Cn YG Domain (Head Office)
This one came via a customer last week. It’s a bog standard scam designed to trick the reader into responding out of fear. The Dear CEO scam appears to be warning the web owner, they may have issues with their domain name. The sender buries the reader in a bunch of useless information making it difficult to parse what the message is actually saying. In fact, it’s just one more piece of junk hitting your inbox. I posted a podcast covering a few details about it here so, give it a listen.
But, the short answer to your question “should I be worried” is “NO. Delete it and move on with your day. Email scams are a dime-a-dozen, but they are getting far more sophisticated, so use a lot of caution when dealing with any unsolicited email. If in doubt, don’t respond and ask for a second opinion. You can always copy and paste the message into Google to see if it pops up as a reported scam.
by catpaw | 11 Jan, 2016 | apps | software | stuff
WUAUSERV won’t stop article was updated Sept, 2020.
I’ve been plagued with the irritating WUAUSERV won’t stop issue. Windows 10 store wouldn’t download / install new apps or updates. Deleting the updates, rebooting didn’t do a bit of good.
First fix for WUAUSERV won’t stop
In the past all it took was to fire up CMD in Admin and type in the following commands:
- net stop wuauserv
- cd %systemroot%
- ren SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
- net start wuauserv
And Bob’s your Uncle. Fire up the store and everything should work. However, a glitch cropped up that prevented Windows Update Service from shutting down. I worked through about 4 possible fixes, each increasingly invasive and complex, none of which worked. They all tripped over WUAUSERV failing to stop.
Possible fix to WUAUSERV won’t stop – check your antivirus
This morning I was struck by a blindingly obvious solution. The culprit was my antivirus program, not windows. I use AVAST, so I disabled it and ran the CMD commands. In under 5 min, Windows 10 store was downloading all previous updates and installed new apps with no issues. I restarted AVAST, went back to the store and it still worked.
So, there you have it, problem solved. However, I have to stress disabling your antivirus for any amount of time is a risk. I’d advice you to disable your internet connection first, then disable your antivirus and run the CMD commands. Restart your Internet and then start the store.
A third fix courtesy of a reader
Reader RON D wrote in with the following alternate fix:
Another way to do it is as follows —
- From a command prompt, run “sc queryex wuauserv”
- Look for the part where it says “PID: {number}” .. that is the process ID of wuauserv.
- Then use pskill, or task manager, to terminate the process. 🙂
Apologies to Ron D for not having this in the comments section, but I was mid stream in switching to a new comment field so he was lost in the switch over. Thanks for sending in this fix.