Unable to edit site for 24 hours now

Support
#1

Hi. I’ve been unable to make changes to my site for 24 hours now. The site doesn’t load in the preview window, and any changes made using skeleton mode won’t save - the blue bar gets to about 99% then stops. Really hindering the progress of the site. Today I’ve tried in on a brand new imac and still having the issue.

When the page hangs it seems to being my entire domain down, as now the site won’t even load. I’ll send links in secure note.

Already contacted my host to ask if there are any issues but their site is fine.

Any ideas?

#2

Hey @doughballs,

Please try the following potential solutions first:

  1. Ensure everything is up to date according to our version compatibility list at https://theme.co/apex/forum/t/troubleshooting-version-compatibility/195. Please follow the best practices when updating your theme and plugins. See https://theme.co/apex/forum/t/setup-updating-your-themes-and-plugins/62 for more details.

  2. If you’re using a caching plugin, clear all caches including browser cache then deactivate your caching plugin and other optimization plugins.

  3. If you’re using a CDN, please clear the CDN’s cache and disable optimization services.

  4. Test for a plugin conflict. You can do this by deactivating all third party plugins, and seeing if the problem remains. If it’s fixed, you’ll know a plugin caused the problem, and you can narrow down which one by reactivating them one at a time.

  5. If you have customizations, temporarily remove custom CSS, Javascript and templates.

  6. Reset your htaccess file by renaming it to .htaccess-bak. Then in WP Admin Menu, go to Settings > Permalinks and just click the Save Changes button.

  7. Contact your host to increase your allocated memory or do it yourself by adding this code in your wp-config.php

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M' );

It is important that you try everything in the list. Only if nothing helps, please give us WordPress Admin and FTP access in a Secure Note.

Thanks.

#3

Hi @christian_y

I’ll give all this a try, but the stumbling block is I can’t even log into wp-admin.

My memory limit was already at 512, but I updated to match your two lines instead of my single line.

#4

Hi @doughballs,

You mean there is white screen or internal server error? If that’s the case, would you mind providing your FTP login credentials in a secure note? I’ll check the error logs, but it doesn’t mean there is always an error log. It’s the only place where we can find more information about this issue.

Thanks!

#5

Hi @Rad

Whitescreen - ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

log in link, good luck!

Sean

#6

Hi There,

Rad meant the FTP credentials. You can take a look at this article:

Regards!

#7

Ok…but i’ve been unable to connect using my FTP client. I can only connect from inside the control panel…See attached.

#8

Hey @doughballs,

I logged in to your WordPress Admin and edited and saved your About page and I experienced no issue (see the screencast in the secure note). Would you mind clearing your browser cache then test editing and saving in Cornerstone again? Also test in incognito mode and other browsers.

Thanks.

#9

I can’t connect to the wp-admin page at all. The page just times out on firefox and chrome. This is on a brand new imac. No issues with any other sites or the internet connection. Hard reloads and caches cleared. I’m stumped!?

UPDATE: Incognito makes no difference. Safari also doesn’t load the pages.

#10

Hi @doughballs,

I checked and it also works on my end as @christian_y tried. Connection timeout can be due to DNS issue too and not just about internet speed/connection. I recommend trying a VPN that can let you access it from different locations/countries and just to confirm that it works on other areas. And DNS issues could affect access to such areas called selective browsing issue.

Thanks!

#11

Hi @Rad

Ok, downloaded windscribe and can now view the site fine. Thanks. How do I resolve the DNS issue without using VPN?

#12

That is not a function of WordPress nor the theme. It’s between your host and your ISP. You will need to contact both parties.

Regretfully, we could not provide further help with this.

Thank you for understanding.

#13

Great, thanks for your help guys, I’ll chase up the ISP and host!

#14

You’re welcome. Glad we’re able to help.

#15

Hi. I’ve opened a support ticket with my host…I’ll see what they say tomorrow. I’ve chaned my DNS settings which allowed me to log in much quicker but the preview won’t load still, on the page I’ve included in the preview. I’ve deactivated all the plugins. Can you try to open the content editor on the specific page and let me know if the preview loads for you?

Also, I need to say that the preview not loading is quite common, but I can often make changes in skeleton mode and save. This is a new low and I’ve lost the entire weekend on it. Every other website loads fine, no issues with speed, it is this site and this page specifically. There is no reason for this page not to load - the message is popping up with aggressive caching as a potential issue but this is just not the case. I tried to edit the page after a week off and got the aggressive caching message straight away.

#16

Hey There,

We were able to check your site. We are getting connection timed out.

There could be issues with your server at the moment. Please let us know when it is resolved so that we can continue checking.

Thanks.

#17

Hi @RueNel

So my host is saying that it is not a caching issue:

“We don’t have any special caching on our professional hosting package - it functions in a fairly standard way, so there is no cache to exclude the page from.”

A number of people on the Facebook X Pro forum said they’d experienced this same issue and resolved it by excluding caching, unfortunately this is not my fix for the reason above.

I just logged in to WP admin fine. This is a specific problem with the page builder, on some pages. I opened up the about page fine, but the two pages in the private note wouldn’t load. It is here that if I try to edit in skeleton mode, I’m unable to complete a save and the whole site goes down. So this seems to be a page specific (and page builder specific) issue.

I would ask you to follow the steps in the private note to see if you can replicate and let me know. I attached a screenshot of the preview error and the console.

Thanks,
Sean

#18

Hi @doughballs,

I went to your website and installed the duplicate post plugin and duplicated the page in question so that I will not touch the original page.

Then I went to change the page and here is the result:

Now, please consider that a theme or a page builder or any other piece of web code cannot create such an error. This error shows that your website is down and it is a 100% hosting service provider problem.

Having said that, the page builder might cause the issue as the builder takes up some resources from the CPU and memory of the server naturally to be able to have all the goodies of the page builder. The website goes down as soon as we try to load the page builder which consumes the resources in a reasonable rate for a page builder but more than a simple plugin page. Now I think your hosting service provider resources are too limited and fail in responding to the needs of the page builder.

The only way of testing the case is that you move your website to another server or your local machine to test the case.

This is the most help that we can provide at this stage. If you want you also can make a complete backup of your website files and database and then upload it to a file sharing service and send us the link as a Secure Note so that I can install your website on my server so that you can see that it will work with no problem.

Thank you for your understanding.

#19

Hi @christopher.amirian!

Ok, well I have 3 backups of the site (by updraft) - you are welcome to download and install direct from the wp-admin page if that is possible? The latest backup (last night) will contain the error, and the middle backup (from 9th sept) was pre-error.

Here is my take. Trying to load the problem page in the page builder fails, and then brings down the entire site. Trying to load all other pages (almost - I’ve tried a lot but maybe not all) is fine, no errors. Also, the problem page loads fine on the client side (when the site hasn’t been crashed by the problem page from within the page builder!).

I create a template of each page when they are complete. Last night I used the ‘problem’ template on a fresh page, and it loaded fine. So there is something on that page that the page builder doesn’t like. The browser doesn’t have a problem. So it is 100% (in my opinion) nothing to do with my host, and 100% to do with the page builder. I’ve had an issue in the past similar to this, and support said it was due to unclosed tags. Unclosed tags can cause the page builder to not load correctly. I’m not saying it’s unclosed tags, but I’m aware that the page builder is very sensitive, and can be crashed by something as benign as an unclosed ‘strong’ tag. (I realise i should always close my tags!! :slight_smile: )

My next step is to delete the page in question, re-add it in wordpress and then re-load the template. I’ve tried so many other things - htaccess, plugins, disabling custom JS - all a waste of time, and it’s paining me that deleting the page and rebuilding (which will be instant with the template) is the solution to the 2 weeks I have lost on the site. There is something on that page that the builder can’t handle…but a browser can. This is the issue.

I’ll let you know when I’ve tried what I plan to do - feel free to download the updraft backups if you have the inclination!

UPDATE: Deleted the page, created the page again, went to sleep, woke up…problem appears to be fixed.

#20

Hi,

Glad to know that the problem is fixed.

Have a great day! :slight_smile: