Troubleshooting

The problems people meet most often, and how to fix them. Each starts with what you'd notice. Still stuck after trying these? Open a ticket and tell us what you tried.

My domain doesn't work

The domain won't verify

• DNS is still updating. New records usually work within minutes, sometimes longer. The error says where the domain points now; wait a little, then choose Verify again.
• The address is wrong. The A record must hold the IPv4 address shown on the site's Domains & SSL tab. Replace any old A records for the same name.
• The record is proxied. With Cloudflare, set the record to “DNS only” (grey cloud) until the certificate is issued, or connect Cloudflare and let Rabbitflare do it all.
• The nameservers are elsewhere. If you changed records at one company but the domain's nameservers point to another, the changes have no effect. Make them where the nameservers point.

The certificate failed, or the browser says “Not secure”

• Check the domain is verified and its A record points at your server. Remove AAAA records that point anywhere other than your server's IPv6 address.
• If your DNS has CAA records, they must allow letsencrypt.org.
• Then choose Retry SSL on the Domains & SSL tab, or Reissue SSL certificate on the Tools tab.

“Too many redirects” with Cloudflare

Cloudflare's Flexible SSL mode loops with sites that have their own HTTPS. Switch SSL/TLS to Full (strict): from the domain's page in the panel's Cloudflare section, or in Cloudflare's dashboard.

The site shows an error

502 Bad Gateway or 504 Gateway Timeout

These mean PHP didn't answer, or didn't answer in time.

• Restart PHP from the server's Tools tab: it clears most stuck states in seconds.
• If it happens on a long task, like an import, raise the site's Time limit under Resources.
• If the site has a memory limit, a request that needs more is stopped: raise the limit, or find what's using so much.
• Check the server's Graphs: if CPU or memory is at the top, the server may need a bigger plan.

“Allowed memory size exhausted”

A page needed more memory than PHP allows one visit. Raise Memory per request on the site's Resources tab; 512 MB suits most heavy plugins.

“There has been a critical error on this website”

This is WordPress reporting a PHP error, usually from a plugin or theme, often right after an update. Sign in to WP Admin if you can and deactivate the most recent plugin. If you can't, use the File Manager to rename that plugin's folder in wp-content/plugins, which switches it off. To see the exact error, set WP_DEBUG and WP_DEBUG_LOG to true in wp-config.php and look in wp-content/debug.log; switch them off again afterwards.

The site is slow

• Is the server busy? The server's Graphs tab shows CPU, memory and load. Each site's Resources tab shows which site is using it.
• Turn on the free CDN so images, CSS and scripts come from near your visitors.
• Use a page-cache plugin for sites with many visitors who aren't signed in. The Redis object cache is already on.
• Keep one site from slowing the rest with a CPU limit, a memory limit or a lower CPU priority on its Resources tab.
• Grow the server if it's regularly at its limits: resize it in a few minutes.

My changes don't show

Something is still serving the old version. Clear each cache in turn:

1. The site's object cache: Purge cache on the site's Tools tab.
2. Your page-cache plugin's cache, in WP Admin, if you use one.
3. The CDN, if you replaced a file but kept its name: Clear everything on the CDN tab.
4. Cloudflare's cache, if you use Cloudflare.
5. Your browser's cache: reload with Shift held down, or try a private window.

An upload is refused as too large

WordPress uploads are limited to 64 MB by default. Raise Upload size on the site's Resources tab, up to 512 MB. For bigger files, the File Manager takes uploads of up to 100 MB each, and zips you can extract on the server.

WordPress emails don't arrive

Servers don't run a mail server of their own, and many clouds block outgoing mail on the usual port, so WordPress can't reliably send email by itself. Install an SMTP plugin, like WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP, and connect it to an email service: your mailbox provider's SMTP (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365) or a sending service. Order confirmations, password resets and form notifications then arrive reliably.

I can't sign in to WP Admin

• Reset the password from the site's Access tab with Reset password; see Sign in to WordPress.
• After a few quick failed tries, the firewall's login protection lets one sign-in through every 6 seconds. Wait a minute and try again.
• If the firewall blocked your own address, find the request under Security events and choose This was me: allow it, or add your address under Allowed addresses.

The firewall blocks something I need

Open the site's Firewall tab, find the request under Security events, and choose This was me: allow it. Pick the narrowest place it should be allowed. See Fix a false alarm.

The server's disk is full

• Clear old logs from the server's Logs tab, and turn on automatic cleanup.
• Delete staging copies you no longer use, and plugins, themes and media you don't need. (Site backups are kept away from the server, so they don't take its room.)
• Resize to a plan with a bigger disk.