SiteDrive not connecting

Support
#1

I’ve created the local drive, but I receive the following messages when trying to connect to the remote drive. Any ideas? It feels like it’s not even doing anything when I click the buttons, as those error boxes pop up so quickly.

Test Connection

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Connect to Drive

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I looked through the docs and forums for anyone with this issue, but wasn’t able to find any other tickets.

I also tried logging into sitedrive.co, thinking that maybe I had to activate something (this is my first connection). when I click on login and it asks for your email so the login link will be sent to me, the email doesn’t ever arrive. It’s been an hour or so. I’ve checked Inbox and Spam folders and nothing.

#2

Hey @splaquet,

Thanks for writing in. Have you checked your permalink settings in Settings > Permalinks? Using Plain is not currently supported. Any other setting will allow the sites to connect to each other.

We would be happy to double check your site if we can log in. You can create a secure note in your next reply with the following info:
– Link to your site
– WP login URL
– WP username
– WP password
– WP Administrator Role
– Confirmation that we can access and make changes to your site

To know how to create a secure note, please check this out: How The Forum Works

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Best Regards.

#3

should be good to go.

thank you!!! this tool will be a complete game changer!

#4

Hey @splaquet,

It looks like something in your server is preventing Sitedrive to work. Please first try deactivating all 3rd party plugins in the source site. Although, I tried making your main site as the main drive and it can’t send data as well.

Please also provide FTP or web host login credentials so we can check your server settings.

Thanks.

#5

@christian,

we have a pretty advanced AWS setup on these sites, so I’m not entirely surprised. with that, I’m unable to share credentials outside of WP Admin.

EC2 files & RDS DB > S3 Media > Firewall / CloudFront > CloudFlare

do you have an internal list of what files & ports need to be open? I’ll have to turn to our AWS engineer and have him review & open up settings.

#6

Hey @splaquet,

Please have the AWS engineer check the following:

1. Ports & Protocols

SiteDrive communicates exclusively over HTTPS (Port 443) using the standard WordPress REST API.

  • Inbound (Remote Site): Must allow traffic on Port 443 from the IP address of your local/connecting site.
  • Outbound (Remote Site): Must allow traffic on Port 443 to sitedrive.co (for license validation) and back to your local site URL.

2. REST API Whitelisting (Cloudflare / CloudFront / AWS WAF)

The most common cause of this error in an AWS setup is a Web Application Firewall (WAF) blocking the SiteDrive namespace. The AWS engineer should ensure the following URI pattern is not challenged (CAPTCHA) or blocked:

  • API Path: /wp-json/sitedrive/v1/*
  • Methods: POST , GET , DELETE
  • Content-Type: application/json

IMPORTANT

Cloudflare “Bot Fight Mode” or AWS WAF “Core Rule Set” often flags server-to-server requests as suspicious because they don’t have a standard browser User-Agent. SiteDrive identifying as WordPress/VERSION; SITE_URL may need to be explicitly allowed.

3. Server-Level Configuration (EC2/Nginx/Apache)

If the request is reaching the EC2 instance but still failing, check these:

  • Authorization Headers: Ensure that custom headers (specifically X-WP-Nonce ) are not being stripped by your load balancer or Nginx config.
  • Security Plugins: If the remote site runs Wordfence, Sucuri, or similar, ensure they aren’t blocking “Aggressive” REST API usage.
  • S3 Media Access: If you are using S3 for media storage, ensure the remote WordPress site can still serve those files via wp_get_attachment_url() —SiteDrive relies on WordPress’s native methods to locate and “package” files for the remote drive.

Other Recommended “Fix” for AWS Engineer:

Create a WAF bypass rule or a Cloudflare Page Rule that disables security checks/challenges for: *example.com/wp-json/sitedrive/v1/*

#7

thank you so much! that’s an amazing writeup. I’d highly recommend adding that to your documentation. I did look there first, before submitting my topic.

I’ll report back when I’ve figured it out. thanks again!

#8

huh, I made Cloudflare tweaks and am now receiving a different error message. it also appears to be thinking for a quick second, rather than immediate error.

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#9

woah, it worked. I had the settings panel open on my source drive. I saved/closed that window and the destination drive gave a success message.

the only change I made was the Security rule on Cloudflare.

reporting back here in case anyone else has this experience.

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#10

Hey @splaquet,

It is good to know that you have now connected your SideDrive. Thank you for sharing the information.

Cheers.

#11

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