In the past few months I have had trouble with multiple hosting platforms all preventing me from connecting my MainWP dashboard to my child sites. In some cases, the Test Connection button returns a “403 forbidden” message. In other cases, I get a “failed to connect… after 1011 ms: Couldn’t connect to server”. And today I am getting “Public key already set…” for a site that had previously stayed connected just fine for over a year.
In all of these cases, I have deactivated and reactivated the child plugin (clearing server-level cache in between), I have completely removed and reinstalled the child plugin, I have whitelisted the IP address of my MainWP Dashboard site in Wordfence on each child site, and I have confirmed with the child sites’ hosts (a mix of Bluehost, GoDaddy, and other smaller companies) that there are no active firewall settings at their level blocking my Dashboard site that would be preventing the connection.
I’m starting to wonder if I should change the hosting for my Dashboard site (currently on name.com shared hosting) in an effort to make sure I don’t have trouble adding children sites. If I were to do this, what would the process of migrating my Dashboard site look like? Would it simply be better to start with a fresh install of MainWP and add all of my child sites as new connections? I currently have 29 child sites enrolled, but if I can get past these connection issues, I would have at least 40+ to manage.
As I had gone in circles before and gotten nowhere with the handful of child sites not connecting, I just made an adjustment to my routines and manually logged into each site once a week to check on them. But as the list of sites I’m not able to connect to MainWP grows, this is not a sustainable routine so I need to find a way to continue utilizing MainWP to manage as many of my clients’ sites as possible.
I have about 3 different hosting options I’m considering for hosting my Dashboard, if I determine that moving off of name(dot)com is the best course of action. Two of those are hosts whom focus almost entirely on WordPress hosting.
I just want to know that this is worth exploring, and whether I should Migrate my existing dashboard, or just start with a fresh install…
I never used name.com but definitely the quality of your hosting provider coudl make a difference. MainWP dashboard can request a lot of resources when syncing your child sites. You have the option to reduce the number of simultaneous connections if you are limited. Like us, we are running 12 simultaneous connections during the sync but we have 2Gb of RAM and 2CPu. Did you try to reduce to 1? See if it works? Those options are under advanced settings: https://yourdashboard.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=SettingsAdvanced
I’ve noticed. I had to stop using Updraft Plus on those clients already… but frankly, the sites on GoDaddy are easier to manage (meaning I don’t mind logging into them once a week) than say stuff I have on Bluehost (some of which are eCommerce and should be managed more frequently) that can’t seem to connect for no clear reason…
That is odd. But would need to know more details on your set up to properly answer. But for sure, I would move away from share hosting and up to a VPS/cloud that you have more control over and can adjust the hardware when needed. I am with Vultr, I do not have any issue except with GD, but that is due to GD’s business practices. Yes, Updraft and VividWP both are on the GD hit list. Get flagged as virus or problem files on the web site directory.
So it sounds from the replies so far that it would be worth it for me to try moving my MainWP dashboard to a different host.
So, if I were to do that, knowing I only have about 30 sites to connect for now, would it make more sense to set up a fresh install of MainWP on this new host, or actually try a full WordPress migration?
Hi @SunfireWeb, I will go with a fresh install so you have a clean state and database on your new hosting provider. Be sure to have all security ID to reconnect your child site so better to do it in parallel. Setup the new one, and reconnect all child sites one by one:
My MainWP dashboard is now hosted at Nestify.io and I have reconnected all of my sites from my previous dashboard.
Of note, the few still on GoDaddy Managed WordPress hosting as well as Bluehost shared WordPress hosting seemed to connect to my new dashboard without issue. These two previously either could not connect or would not stay connected. I will monitor through the weekend to see if any further connection issues come up here.
