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Major issue: Network admin unaccesable since updating plugins through wpmu sites dashboard

Hi

Yesterday I followed advice from defender on the wpmu sites dashboard and clicked update all for 2 plugins on my site: ‘nextgen facebook’ (which I use for all my sites.) and’ jetpack’ (which has been unused for a long time) after doing that I tried to log into the network admin and got a blank white page. I researched the issue and the best advice was to turn off all pluging via ftp, which worked. I then rooted out the plugins that were causing the issue: ‘nextgen facebook’ and’ jetpack’ so I removed these via ftp and tried to re-install nextgen via my network admin page. It installed ok but when I tried to activate it, again a white page. So I’ve had to give up with that for now.I then started to look into the issue through my network admin page and wpmu dashboard, I noticed that defender was continually initiating a scan but never achieving anything, everytime I went to the page it just has a spinning icon. While I waited I decided to click on the recommendation in defender for the plugin to speed up load times on my website thinking that may be the issue. Doing this once again caused the white page of doom. I am now locked out of my network admin page and have no idea what to do. I updated wordpress the other day to 4.7. I’m wondering if that has caused the issue? I do have a back-up of my database files only of the previos wp-version taken on the 30th November (by the way Snapshot has consistently failed to work if I include my themes files and plugin files, since I installed it, so can only make snapshots of database and media) My gut feeling is that there is an issue with 4.7 and your plugins? I’m not a programmer and have a medium skill level at the back end stuff. I wont update from the wpmu dashboard again I dont think, this has all made me very nervous. To assist you, I have noticed as I’ve tried to resolve this, that in the performance tab of the wmpu dashboard shows my ‘server response time’ has fallen from 67 to 27. I’m wondering if defender is stuck in a loop on my server or something like that? If I could turn back the clock, I would not have updated to wp-4.7 as doing that then following Defenders update advice has led me to this point. I’m hoping you can advise me what to do. Finally, the network sites are all working on the front end, I just cant get into the network admin. Please help!!

By the way, I can get into the other admin pages on the network

Fri, 9 Dec 2016 13:16:54
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  • Sajid
    • DEV MAN’s Sidekick

    Hello jon,

    Hope you are doing good today :slight_smile:

    I can understand that WordPress upgrade may cause issues if not handled carefully specially when you are using lots of plugins.

    So, the best way to apply updates is creating a staging site (exact replica of your live site) and then applying all the updates there first. In case things goes wonky, your live site and visitors don’t effect with it.

    Well, that is the future recommendation and that you should consider while updating WordPress, any plugin or your theme.

    My gut feeling is that there is an issue with 4.7 and your plugins?

    I don’t that is the case because I am using the latest version of WordPress and most of our plugins active on it and working just fine. We always make sure the 100% compatibility of our plugins with latest WordPress.

    Regarding the white scree of death issue while being Defender plugin active, there must be any error message that could lead us towards a solution.

    So please enable debugging by setting the WP_DEBUG flag from false to true in wp-config.php, then try to access the network dashboard, this time you should see error message instead of white screen of death. Copy the error message and post it here.

    If you don’t know how to enable debugging then please take a look at this article for steps:

    https://www.a2hosting.com/kb/installable-applications/optimization-and-configuration/wordpress2/debugging-wordpress

    In case you would to restore to previous version of plugin, then you can do that manually too by downloading the older version of WordPress and replacing the files.

    See this article for steps to downgrade the WordPress.

    http://dominiquej.com/how-to-downgrade-wordpress-to-previous-version/

    However, I would recommend you to stick with the latest version.

    Best Regards,

    Sajid

  • jon
    • Flash Drive

    Hi

    thanks for your time. below is the output now I’ve turned the WP_DEBUG flag to true. I’ve looked at the offending line in the functions.php as the de-bug says and the line there is:

    $class, $parent_class, $version, ‘

    __construct()

    ‘ ) );

  • jon
    • Flash Drive

    Hi. I seem to have sorted things out and I’ve stayed with wP-4.7.I found some old code from W3 Total Cache along with the woo problems, although the woo issues remain, they are not crashing the network admin. Can you recommend a safe cache plugin? Do wpmu do one? I’m sure you are busy, but if you have any thoughts on the de-bug details I sent you that would be great.

    Thanks for your help

  • Sajid
    • DEV MAN’s Sidekick

    Hello jon,

    Hope you are doing good today :slight_smile:

    W3 Total Cache is one of most popular plugins in WordPress.org repository and should work fine.

    However, if you are looking for an alternate then check following plugin:

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-fastest-cache/

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/

    I am sorry but I can’t see the error message in your previous replies. It is just the reference of code that don’t give any clue. Could you please share the exact error message here or attach the error log file with your reply ?

    Also, for Woo Problems, please create a separate ticket so we could assist you further. This will help us manage each issue in its own ticket.

    Take care and have a nice day :slight_smile:

    Best Regards,

    Sajid

  • jon
    • Flash Drive

    Hi. I’ve been working on my website over the last week since getting in touch and noticed that Defender network de-activated so I activated it and got the same issue as before that my last communications with you covered. I now have a white screen when trying to access network admin. The debug tells me the same detail as before and I’ve copied it into a pdf attached. I actually re-joined wpmu for Defender so I’m hoping this can be resolved! I’m sure it can. Please advise.For now I’ll de-activate defender through http://ftp.Is that a good idea?

    many thanks

    Jon