Hi Guys, what could cause a white screen of death when no updates have been carried out between the site working and the site not working? Our site was fine on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and then today (Tuesday) we came to log in and everything was showing a white on the front end but the dashboard was working fine.
The only way to get things to render the front end was to disable tagDiv Composer. We’ve been running WordPress 6.1.1 with tagDiv Newspaper 12.3 stable for months. I tried everything to resolve it but had to resort to a server rollback to Saturday, 3 days ago, which bought everything back online – still using the same versions of everything.
Thanks
Matt
Hello Matt,
I recommend updating the theme to version 12.6.6 and checking for malware.
After you update the theme, you need to update the theme plugins too.
In the worst cases, the settings in the theme panel may be lost (there have been isolated cases), in these cases, after the theme plugins that were previously used are activated, you will have to use a backup for the theme panel -> https://forum.tagdiv.com/import-export-theme-settings/
You could consider reinstalling the WordPress version, and checking for this plugin wp-zexit.php. It might be wise to inspect via FTP if it doesn’t appear in the WordPress -> Plugins. Additionally, using Wordfence to scan the website and remove unknown users would be prudent.
Change admin passwords and delete admin accounts you are not familiar with;
– Delete any weird/unknown plugins;
– Delete the weird/unknown themes;
– Clean unfamiliar Theme Panel injected code (example – https://i.imgur.com/4q70kCv.png);
– Clean WordPress files (example – https://i.imgur.com/stJCqiK.png)
Please block /wp-json/tdw/save_css
If an attacker wants to target this URL /wp-json/tdw/save_css they can do so. Even if the website uses a different theme, the attacker can still try that URL. We could add an option to be able to enable/disable the Live CSS, it will be considered. But for now in order to remove it this can only be done with a modification to the composer plugin. I think that all that removing it requires is to comment this line of code – https://prnt.sc/RtwvL5Nc4ikR -> https://prnt.sc/ymZmhdUfp57U But as I mentioned, the attacker can still try to access the URL.
If you want, you can contact our custom work team here, and they can help you update the theme safely: https://tagdiv.com/premium-customization-services/
Thank you!
