If you are experiencing an issue with connecting your website to your MainWP Dashboard, be sure to check this list of potential issues and solutions.

MainWP Child plugin missing

• To connect your website, you need to make sure that the MainWP Child plugin is installed on the website that you are trying to connect.
• If you cannot connect your website to your MainWP Dashboard, and you are sure that you have installed the MainWP Child plugin on your website, make sure that the plugin is activated.

Requests being blocked by the Child Site server

In most cases, when the child site server firewall or any other security layer blocks requests from your MainWP Dashboard, you will get the error message that says that the Connection timed out after 100000ms or the Site can’t be reached.

In some cases, the Child Site server blocks requests sent from the Dashboard site, and your website may return the message that the MainWP Child plugin can’t be found. This means that the request never reaches the website, and since there is no feedback from the MainWP Child, MainWP Dashboard returns this generic error message.

In both cases, you need to contact your Child Site host support department and have them allow your MainWP Dashboard IP address (found at the MainWP > Status page, under the Server IP check). In most cases, this will be mod_security, 7G or 6G firewalls, but it can be any. It is highly recommended to insist on reviewing all security layers on the child site server.

See our help article about whitelisting MainWP Dashboard for ModSecurity.

The connection being Blocked by Cloudflare

Some users with Cloudflare have reported trouble connecting their website to their MainWP Dashboard. If you are experiencing this issue, please try to whitelist your MainWP Dashboard in your Cloudflare settings.

SSL Verification Fails

In some cases, when Dashboard tries to reach the child site, SSL Certificate verification can fail due to SSL Cert misconfiguration or expiration. To be sure that the child site SSL cert is set properly and verification can pass, please do the following:

1. Go to the SSL Checker page
2. Enter your child site URL
3. Click the Check SSL button
4. After results appear, if there is any warning or error reported, contact your host support and have them recheck the SSL Settings and do what is necessary to resolve the error.

The website you are trying to connect has been migrated recently

You may have recently moved the website to another server, and your Dashboard’s Server may not have an updated DNS, or your server may be experiencing DNS issues. To check this, use the Test Connection tab and verify the IP matches with the IP that shows on your website WP > Settings > MainWP Child > Server Information page.

In case there is an IP address mismatch, you will need to contact your hosting provider and request two things:

1. Dashboard Site host: request DNS Cache flush
2. Child Site host: request DNS Settings verification

Plugin conflict

If, after verifying that the MainWP Child plugin is installed and activated on your website, the website still can’t be connected to your MainWP Dashboard, try to disable all plugins except for MainWP Child and connect your site after that.

Dashboard Site Server Misconfiguration

To be sure that your Dashboard Site server is configured properly and can be used for hosting the MainWP Dashboard plugin:

1. Log in to your Dashboard Site
2. Go to the MainWP > Server Information page
3. Locate the following checks and make sure that all of them display the Pass response:
   • SSL Extension Enabled
   • SSL Warnings
   • cURL Version
   • cURL OpenSSL Version

Child Site Server Misconfiguration

To be sure that your Child Site server is configured properly and can be connected to your MainWP Dashboard:

1. Log in to your Child Site
2. Go to the WP > Settings > MainWP Child > Server Information page
3. Locate the following checks and make sure that all of them display the Pass response:
   • MainWP Upload Directory
   • SSL Extension Enabled
   • SSL Warnings
   • cURL Version
   • cURL OpenSSL Version

Dashboard and Child site on the same server with disabled loopback connections

If your Dashboard Site is on the same server as your website that you are trying to connect to it, you need to make sure that the loopback connections are allowed and enabled on your server. To do that;

1. Log into your Dashboard Site
2. Go to the MainWP > Server Information page
3. Locate the Server self-connect check

If you see anything different than Response Test O.K., it means that the loopback connections are disabled. In that case, you will need to contact your host support and request enabling this feature. If by any chance, that is not possible, you should consider moving your Dashboard Site to another Webserver or Localhost.