unable to access secureservercdn2.net

[mindthegip]

Hello,
when I try to save a new search instance settings (i.e. adding a new search source), I got this error message:

Sorry, you have been blocked
You are unable to access secureservercdn2.net

Can you please help?
Thanks!

[Ernest Marcinko]

Hi,

Sure!

The block is reported by Cloudflare firewall – it is a false positive match. Unfortuantely there are no other details available. It happens because cloudflare heuristics picks up a “suspicious” payload when submitting the form. Cloudflare firewall is very complex and has hundreds of thousands of active rules, I have had similar issue with other plugins too, so it’s not uncommon. Most of the time a word or a string triggers it within the settings.

Can you please add temporary FTP access so I can make changes to the search plugin files? I will try to debug ste-by-step the submitted payload to see which value cloudflare doesn’t like. It’s a painful process, but at least I will know what to look for if this issue may repeat for someone else.

[mindthegip]

Hi Ernest, unfortunately I have no FTP credentials to share.
Could you please access the needed file throug https://cometohive.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wp_file_manager ???
Otherwise send me the updated file with the path to reach it and overwrite it.
Thanks!

[Ernest Marcinko]

I tried the file manager, but it is not working correctly, it’s not loading all the files, reverts back to the base directory and takes over 3 minutes to open a file – I guess the firewall does not like that either. If it’s possible to adjust the firewall, I strongly suggest that.

Either way, I will try to replicate this on one of our test servers with the highest firewall settings to see if I can get the same errror and go from there. This is unfortunately not a simple plug fix, first I need to be able to tell what exactly triggers it.

I will get back to you soon.

[Ernest Marcinko]

Good news! I have very likely found the culprit. Because of a previous Yoast SEO plugin vulerability, Cloudflare has a trigger for a post variable “orderby”. This was detected falsely and triggered the block on our ends.

I’m attaching the patched version to this post, please install and activate it. After that the issue should go away.

[mindthegip]

yeah it is working! thanks!

[Ernest Marcinko]

Great! I will make sure to have this included in the upcoming version 🙂 Thanks for the feedback!

If you don’t mind, I will close this topic soon and mark it as resolved, feel free to open another one if you have other questions or issues.

If you like the plugin and have not rated already, feel free to leave a rating on your codecanyon downloads page and on the wordpress plugin repository, it’s greatly appreciated.

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