Cloudflare is blocking

[BURN___]

Hi,

I bought Ajax Search pro, but when I try to save settings in WordPress I get blocked by Cloudflare. E.g. the plugin is not working.

I spoke with my hosting supplier and they looked at the Cloud Flare Ray ID and says the issues is with the Plugin.

I see other users have this issue as well with other hosting providers, I see that in your fourm, but there is no solution for this.

How can we get Ajax Search Pro to work and not get blocked by Cloudflare? Since this is a repeat issue for this plugin, I assume you have a solution by now. At least I hope.

What can we do?

[BURN___]

…and by the way, I forgot to say that this is ONLY an issue with the Ajax Search Pro plugin.

The Ajax Search Lite plugin, does not get blocked by Cloudflare, so the issue is isolated to the paid version called Ajax Search Pro. It’s only the paid Pro version of the plugin that gets blocked by Cloudflare.

[Ernest Marcinko]

Hi,

It happens if Cloudflare picks up a false-positive firewall match. Based on the ray ID, you might be able to check what exactly triggered the firewall and make an exception to it.

Unortunately these are extremely rare and it’s never the same exact thing, it’s always something different as their WAF rules update regularly. Sometimes it’s a piece of user input text, a hexadecimal value etc.. It’s not really about the plugin version, WAF blocks requests that seem suspicious.

Another solution is to either decrease the firewall sensitivity, enable development mode or the best of the best is to add your IP address as an exception to the cloudflare firewall.

[BURN___]

Hi Ernest,

OK, I understand, but it does not resolve the issue.

I use GoDaddy as hosting partner, and I have no access to the Cloudflare firewall settings. So anything to do with the Cloudflare firewall, is not possible to change.

That said, the Ajax Search Lite plugin works without the issues. It’s only the AJAX Search Pro that has this issue. Why is that?

Also, since I can’t change the settings of the GoDaddy Cloudflare firewall, what else can I do to solve the issue?#

I would love to use the JAX Search Pro, but without a solution to avoid it being blocked by Cloudflare it’s not possible, so I’m hoping you can suggest a fix, as it must be possible to identify what’s causing the issue with the Pro version and not the Lite version of the plugin.

Best,
Daniel

[Ernest Marcinko]

Why is that?

That’s impossible to answer like that. Clouflare looks at the request bodies, and if the heuristics see something suspicious then it blocks it. However sometimes it triggers a false positive – like in this case. I hihgly doubt it is simple to tell which parameter or argument triggers it, as the request is usually checked a million different ways.
For example I have had similar issues with Elementor and Divi builder – even though it’s super rare, it happens regardless of any plugin, as it’s related to the request. Elementor and Divi had nothing to change as it was an isolated case, as they shouldn’t.

I can take a look at the issue directly if you want to – via back-end as well as FTP access and try modifying some of the arguments to see what might be the trigger. It’s a painful process, and it may not work, but I can try if you want to. Make sure to add temporary FTP and back-end access, as I will have to save & modifiy the plugin files.

[BURN___]

Hi Ernest,

Hmmm…. So your plugin does not work. That’s the conclusion. I find that unacceptable when I test out the Lite version and it does work, then I pay for the Pro versions and it doesn’t work, that’s not OK, and I want a refund. Thank you.

Best,
Daniel

[Ernest Marcinko]

Hi Daniel,

Not exactly, the plugin does work, but the firewall does not let the request though because of a false positive match. Either way, if you don’t want any further help I accept it.

You can of course open a refund request if you want to via this link.

[Author]

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