WiscWeb - Wordfence Errors
This document will walk you through common Wordfence errors, what they mean, and how to work around them.
- Wordfence's '403 Forbidden' Error
- Wordfence's '503: Your Access to This Site Has Been Limited by Owner' Error
403 Forbidden Error
This error will show up when the IP address you are accessing the site from has been blocked by Wordfence.
If you receive this error, please follow the steps under "Resolution" below.
503: Your Access to This Site Has Been Limited by Owner' Error
This error will show up when the IP address you are accessing the site from has been blocked by Wordfence.
If you receive this error, please follow the steps under "Resolution" below.
Resolution
If the Wordfence error provides any steps for you (like filling out a form to report the problem or submitting your email address to send an unlock email), then you should try to do those steps. It helps to have the request to Wordfence come directly from the user as it will be associated with the IP address you have at the time of the issue and Wordfence will be able to more quickly act on it. This is especially true for the 403 errors.
If you are off campus at the time of receiving a Wordfence error, the issue is likely that one of the WiscVPN IP's has been blacklisted. A good short term workaround (after submitting the form to Wordfence as mentioned above) is to disconnect from VPN and reconnect, so that you might get a new IP address. While it doesn't necessarily fix the ultimate issue of the IP being blocked, it may allow you to get into your WiscWeb site to make edits.
If neither of the above options works for you, then submit a request to the WiscWeb team to alert us of this issue: help@doit.wisc.edu
Please include:
- Screenshot of the error you are receiving
- Your IP address (lookup your IP address on whatismyip.com)
- A full description of what you were doing when the issue occurred