How do I deal with failed Backups?
Unable to create backup: The file size of wp-content/plugins/example/demo.php is different then expected. This means that the file has been changed during the backup process. Please wait until the next backup picks up the new changes. If this problem persists, contact us.
This means that the file’s size changed during the backup process and that is why the backup process did not finish correctly. If the file in question is a cache file or the log file, you should exclude the file from the backup and trigger the process again.
There is a unique situation with Wordfence log file, and you will get this error if that is the case:
Unable to create backup: The file size of wp-content/wflogs/attack-data.php is different then expected. This means that the file has been changed during the backup process. Please wait until the next backup picks up the new changes. If this problem persists, contact us.
In this case, the file in question should be excluded in order to resolve the issue. If you are not using Premium Wordfence version, excluding the file will restore Wordfence correctly. With Premium version of Wordfence, excluding the file from the backup might result in losing Wordfence settings after the restore and exporting Wordfence Settings under plugin’s options is recommended.
ManageWP is having trouble connecting to your website. Please make sure your website is online with the ManageWP Worker plugin active. If you are still experiencing this issue please contact us.
Connection error (403 Forbidden), please make sure that your website is accessible and that it is not blocking ManageWP requests.
We got an HTTP 404 error after the request was being processed for 0 seconds. If your website is online, this might indicate an issue where a load-balancer or a firewall cut the connection before the request could complete or it might be that our IP's are getting blocked.
If you are experiencing some issues with the Backup process, first of all, you might check if the website in question is syncing correctly. If that is not the case, we are unable to connect to the Worker plugin that is installed and activated on the website, and due to that, the Backup process could not be started.
If you notice one of the last two errors, you should whitelist our IP addresses in your security plugin’s options, your WAF, and ask your hosting provider if something is blocking us additionally.
We are sending custom headers that shouldn’t be blocked, and you should also check that. However this is needed in very rare cases, so you may treat it as a last resort if whitelisting IPs is not working.
MWP-Action, MWP-Message-ID, MWP-Signature
Error reading wp-content/uploads/example.png - permission denied. Please make sure that the file is readable or exclude it from the backup
In order for Backup process to be successful, the permission should be set to 755 (for folders) and 644 (for files).
If everything seems to be in order when you check the permissions via FileZilla or some other FTP client, there are a couple of things that you might check in order to see if something is overriding those permission.
First of all, you could take a quick look at the wp-config.php file. There might be a line of code that is overriding the permission, and it could look something like this:
define( ‘FS_CHMOD_DIR’, ( 0xxx & ~ umask() ) );
define( ‘FS_CHMOD_FILE’, ( 0xxx & ~ umask() ) );
If xxx part is not equal to 755 and 644 for FS_CHMOD_DIR and FS_CHMOD_FILE respectively, that should be the culprit that was overriding the permission. Changing the values to the correct numbers should do the trick.
Also, you could check with your hosting provider if some server settings are overriding the permission if this doesn’t work.
Connection error (408 Request Timeout), please make sure that your website is accessible. If this problem persists, contact us.
SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 144 Table 'wp_example' is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed Please try adding database credentials in the backup settings, to enable direct connection with the database.
If the connection times out before the process is completed, or you get the specific database error, the messages could look like the two above.
First of all, you might try to repair the database from your phpMyAdmin panel.
After that, FTP and Database credentials should be added under Backup Settings in order to finish the Backup process successfully.
That way, we will have direct server and database connection, and Backups should be faster and more reliable.
Before adding those, you should enable remote database access and whitelist our IP addresses in your database configuration.
Once this is done, you are able to navigate to Settings tab under Backups, and scroll down to find FTP Settings and MYSQL Settings. You should enter your credentials there, click Backup now button and the backup process should finish successfully.
Backups are not uploading to my external destination
If the backups are not uploaded to your external destination, even though you connected it successfully, you could go to your Backups screen in order to see if the upload is scheduled correctly.
Under Backup Settings >> Upload to external destination, you could change the frequency and set the preferred Weekday for the upload ( if the frequency is set to Weekly). All uploads are done at the end of the day, so if the Backups are not yet uploaded, it should be done by the end of the day.
100,000 file limit exceed (100,050 files detected). Please use the exclude files/folders feature in the backup settings to reduce the number of files.
If the file limit is exceeded (400000 files for Premium Backups and 100000 files for Free Backups), you should see the message above.
In order to resolve this, you could use an option to exclude some files from your Backup. You are able to navigate to your Backup Settings >> Include/Exclude content and exclude some files or folder to get the file number below the limit. Once this is done, the Backup process should start automatically.
Please note that excluding the files from your future Backups will exclude those files from the Backups that are already made.
Connection error (500 Internal Server Error), please make sure that your website is accessible.
This usually means that there is some Server error, and your site is not accessible from the internet. Unfortunately, there is not much that we could do in this case, and your hosting provider should be able to help with this and resolve the issue quickly.
Once this is resolved, the backup process should work without issues.
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