GeoDirectory SupportRegistration form conflict with Wordfence plugin – GeoDirectory Support

Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

cnelsonjeffers — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 18:12:44 +0000

I am setting up a new local directory site using GD, and have come across an apparent incompatibility with Wordfence – which I like to use for site security.

In brief, when attempting to submit the GD registration signup form for a new user, I get an error indicating that there are missing arguments:

Warning: Missing argument 2 for wordfence::registrationFilter() in /public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wordfenceClass.php on line 756

Warning: Missing argument 3 for wordfence::registrationFilter() in /public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wordfenceClass.php on line 756

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordfence/lib/wordfenceClass.php:756) in /public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 861

A similar thread in the support forum of a different directory plugin developer indicated that Wordfence “uses more function arguments than are currently enabled in the theme” – which I take to mean that the organic WP registration form provides more arguments than the custom form being used by that particular directory plugin at that time, and that Wordfence does not like them to be missing.

In that thread, users were indicating that the problem was also affecting various CAPTCHA plugins.

I like Wordfence and don’t relish the idea of running a site without it some sort of form CAPTCHA. Is there truth to the above diagnosis that also applies to GD and will it be possible to provide a fix?

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

Paolo — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 18:32:07 +0000

Personally I hate wordfence and would never use it, so I’m not really the right person to reply about this.

I’ve flagged it for Stiofan, who will let you know asap.

Thx

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

cnelsonjeffers — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 18:37:15 +0000

Thanks – I hear you. Is there an alternative providing the same kind of security functionality as Wordfence, that would be compatible with GD?

It sounded in that particular thread like the issue also affected other security plugins (captcha) not just WF, so if it’s an issue of not providing all of the arguments as the organic registration form it might still need to be addressed for better compatibility.

It sounds like the issue popped up originally after a WP update and subsequent WF update in 2013.

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

Paolo — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 20:51:04 +0000

Hi again,

I use none of them… so I wouldn’t really know.

From my personal experience (and I don’t say it is not questionable) they only take away precious server resources and slow down your website.

Major down point is that they are extremely strict, while one of the things I like most about wordpress is that is very flexible.

Thx

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

cnelsonjeffers — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 21:01:30 +0000

Ok Thanks – I had looked at a different one some time ago that a website developer liked to use, although I think he ended up liking Wordfence.

Good point on the server load. Right now I use a pretty low-end shared host but I’m guessing the possible volumes and search activity of a directory site might need a more exclusive and faster environment eventually anyway.

I saw a thread elsewhere here addressing the use of a captcha plugin for the GD reg and login form. I’ll take more of a look at that too. I presume Askimet will work decently with GD to control the comment spam.

Thanks again!

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

Paolo — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 21:05:06 +0000

We do use both reCaptcha from google (free user of this forum can’t post without entering a captcha) and askimet. So far, we delt with zero spam.

Thx

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

Stiofan O'Connor — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 09:32:29 +0000

I hate wordfence too lol, i just would not recommend it. My best advice is if you start having any problems such as spam just let us know and we will best advise how to tackle it or even work in a solution to our products.

Thanks,

Stiofan

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

cnelsonjeffers — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:24:59 +0000

Thanks Stiofan — I’m going to look into integrating the recaptcha into the registration form, and implementing Askimet for comments.

I noted in a different thread back in May someone listed Wordfence as being currently compatible with GD, so I’m not sure why my install kicked out the error as other threads elsewhere have suggested that it was an update to the core WP and a subsequent WF update back in 2013 that started the problem of the missing arguments from a custom registration form.

Perhaps there is a setting in WF to disable the reg form scan. I’ll look into that also.

Other threads I found seemed to indicate a similar error occurring with various captcha plugins which would expand the scope of the compatibility problem beyond WF to potentially include any component that interacts with custom reg forms.

Would it make sense to modify the custom form in some way so that the arguments WF is missing get supplied by the form, even if they are not strictly necessary for the creation of users by GD?

Paolo made a good point about the performance load of security plugins like WF, but WF does a lot more to monitor, scan, and block attacks than just registration and comment spam, and I’m uncomfortable not using it or something very similar.

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

Stiofan O'Connor — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 15:19:50 +0000

OK, you can try this…

The PHP output you are seeing is not PHP errors it is PHP warnings, these are very different and until PHP 5.4 they were not shown for most things.

Try adding this to your child theme functions.php (near the top but after the PHP opening tag)

error_reporting(E_ERROR);

Hopefully this fixes it for you, let us know.

Stiofan

Reply To: Registration form conflict with Wordfence plugin

cnelsonjeffers — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 22:24:50 +0000

Excellent! That seems to have resolved the issue. I can now successfully register new users with Wordfence enabled.

I am also going to look more into adding the recaptcha to the reg form, and will enable Askimet for the comments.