Lots of disconnected sites after update of MainWP 4.5.0.1

Last night I’ve updated MainWP Dashboard from 4.5 to 4.5.0.1 and this morning I found out that about 60+ of my sites (300+ total) were disconnected. I can reconnect them, one by one or in bulk via the Sites page, but as soon as I sync or try to update, it disconnects again.

There are no obvious similarities for these sites, different servers (good hosts), no different security, no migrations etc.

As a workaround I can login to each site, disable MainWP Child (4.5 as well), reactivate it and reconnect. Then everything is working fine again.

I don’t have time right now to dive in deeper or apply the workaround to all of them, but I just wanted to report this in case it has anything to do with the update (I’m not sure yet).

This didn’t happen with the 4.5 beta versions or 4.5 final.

I have the same problem. Many pages are disconnected. I can successfully reconnect them. At the next sync they are disconnected again. This issue is since the latest update.

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Warning
Don’t try a rollback to 4.5, because now I’ve got 255 disconnected sites and that doesn’t get fixed when updating again to 4.5.0.1

I think this is the universe telling me, I need to take the day off… :see_no_evil:

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@josklever @gisi0815,

What is the OpenSSL Signature Algorithm that you have selected in the MainWP > Settings > Advanced Options page:

Can you try to select SHA256 or SHA512, save settings and see if you can reconnect and resync sites?

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These are my settings:

I’ve also tested with SHA512, but the result is the same. I didn’t change any of these settings. The only thing that changed was the update from 4.5 to 4.5.0.1, so something must have triggered this issue.

Hi Jos,

That is really strange.
Can you please tell me what is the OpenSSL version number of your child site server?
Are all your sites on the same server, or at least all that are disconnected?

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All kinds of servers, and they can connect, when I reactivate the MainWP Child plugin, so it’s not a permanent issue, but it is a lot of work.

I see sites with OpenSSL/1.1.1k and OpenSSL/1.1.1p for example.

If it helps, we can have a videocall, so we can live test on my system. I’ll send you a link via DM.

Hi Jos,

Thanks for the feedback. I understand the problem.
While we were testing the 4.5.0.1 update extensively, we observed this strange behavior only when the Dashboard plugin gets rolled back to the 4.4.3.4 version from 4.5.

But I don’t understand why the sync process failed after upgrading to 4.5.0.1 for you after you had a successful connection during 4.5.

Before you start reconnecting your sites manually by resetting the MainWP Child, may I suggest one potential solution:

Roll back MainWP Dashboard to 4.5; this was the version where the connection worked for you.
Next, go to the MainWP > Settings > Advanced Settings page, and even if the SHA256 is selected as the OpenSSL signature algorithm, resave your settings and try to reconnect and resync sites.
If everything goes well, try to upgrade to 4.5.0.1 again.

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I’ve just tried that and it has no effect.

Thanks for trying that.

I appreciate your offer to have a video call, but I am not sure I could figure out why this happens by simply observing the situation.

Would it be an option for you if you have a few spare minutes to make one test/demo site on one of the servers where you have the problem and allow us access to it? We would try to stage the whole scenario by connecting the site with MainWP 4.4 version, then upgrade to 4.5 beta, 4.5, and 4.5.01, the same as you did, so we can try to figure out what caused it and what is the easiest solution.

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It doesn’t look related to certain servers, because other sites on the same server ares still connected.
My time is very limited, because I have to leave in half an hour for the rest of the day, so setting up a test account doesn’t seem the best option at the moment. I just proposed the video call because it’s much faster than typing and waiting for feedback.

Same problem here:

  • 1/3 of websites disconnected
  • website can be reconnected
  • with next scan, they are again disconnected

J

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Hi @josklever
I understand. I tried to replicate the scenario on our test servers as described earlier and had no problems with the connection at any step.

Is there any chance you temporarily got MainWP Dashboard rolled back to 4.4.3.4 during the process or selected SHA1 as the Signature verification algorithm?

Hi @jeroen,

What OpenSSL verification algorithm have you selected? Does it help if you change to any other? Does it help, as Jos mentioned, if you deactivate and reactivate the MainWP Child plugin on the child site and reconnect after that?

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Negative to both. It exactly happened like I described. I hope the others can help you investigate it further.

Thanks @josklever. We will keep looking and hopefully find out what happened.

Selected OpenSSL verification algorithm: SHA256. Switching to SHA512 had no effect. Reconnecting and resyncing site resulted in a disconnected site.

Deactivating and reactivating the MainWP Child plugin helps: I was able to resync the site without disconnecting it.

J

Count me in on this issue OpenSSL/1.1.1f in most cases. Sites on GridPane and WPEngine but nothing specific since as has been said some sites on a server are fine and others are not.

Hi @7thcircle

If you are running the latest version of the MainWP Dashboard (4.5.0.1) and the latest version of the MainWP Child plugin (4.5.0.1), and are still experiencing these issues, please open a private Help Desk ticket so we investigate further.

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It looks like in the end every client is disconnecting until the MainWP Child plugin has been deactivated and activated again. The reason not all of them were disconnected at the same time has probably something to do with not every site completely syncing or checking everything at the same time.

I’ve applied this workaround for about half of my sites now, but still have a lot of work to do… :hot_face:

It has cost me my Saturday, but I’ve reconnected all sites. I hope you can find the cause with help of others and fix it for people who still have to update. I couldn’t wait until Monday for further investigation, as I have a business to run.