WordPress is a wide platform spread across the world and contains more than 25 percent of the website owners in the world. And while using such a huge platform, there will occur a number of wanted and unwanted errors. Some of these errors may be helpful. Did you hear it right? Yes, you did. These errors show you where the errors come from so that you only need to correct the root to solve the issue.
There are some other vague errors in WordPress which you’ll surely encounter at some point, and these errors won’t give you the slightest idea of what’s wrong. One of these errors is…
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
The issue with this error is that WordPress will be unable to point you to any particular mistake or issue. The mistake you made may be a silly fixable one. Otherwise, in a rare case, your website may have been hacked, which is a WordPress security issue which is easily solved.
In this article, let’s unveil the solution for this puzzling error called “Are you sure you want to do this?”.
What Causes the Error?
The “Are you sure you want to do this?” error can happen while accomplishing different tasks. The error is usually triggered by a nonce verification failure. Nonces are the security tokens used by WordPress to validate a user as the owner of their account and to verify that they have the correct user role to complete the action they started. They thus ensure that a script’s origin is from your website and not from any external source that of a hacker.
Most usually, plugins and themes are the culprits behind this error. The “Are you sure you want to do this?” error can happen in the following cases and more.
- Publishing pages/posts in WordPress
- Inserting images in posts
- Customizing a WordPress theme
- Creating tags or categories for a WordPress page
- Uploading a WordPress theme or plugin
- Updating a WordPress core or themes/plugins
This list is just a short version of all issues that will show the error. When the error occurs, you’ll only see the error message accompanied by a link to try again. Seriously, the try again link never serves its purpose. The same error loads again.
The error is named so to make you think about the mistake you or the theme/plugin developer may have done to make the website unavailable.
Following are several of the major reasons causing the ‘Are You Sure’ error:
- Selection of an incorrect file while trying to upload a theme or plugin
- A theme or plugin not properly coded
- Hitting the PHP memory limit
- Any security related issue
How to Fix the Error?
The “Are you sure you want to do this?” error is mostly triggered by a faulty plugin or theme installed to your website. As this can be a single one from a big lot, you should try investigating each of them to find out who is creating the problem.
Following is a title by title fixes for several issues that may be creating the ‘Are you sure?’ error in your website.
Finding Out The Faulty Plugin
Plugins can be one of the core reasons causing the ‘Are you sure?’ error. Deactivating the plugins not always helps when it comes to diagnosing errors. It is better if you delete all the plugins. If you think reinstalling plugins will be tiring, you can rename the plugin folders and rename them back later.
If you find it difficult to access the plugins, you can use an FTP client or cPanel to do so. The plugins will be listed under the directory /wp-content/plugins/.
After deleting/renaming all the folders, install/rename them back one by one. Try reloading the website every time you bring back a new plugin. This way, you can easily spot who is the culprit. Now, communicate with the developer of the faulty plugin to get the issue solved.
Checking If Your Theme Is Faulty
After checking the plugins and if you are finding them all without any faults and good, it’s time to diagnose your active plugin. You can follow the same steps as for the plugins for checking your theme. But first, it is safe to download your theme files to the desktop as a backup. Then, you can delete or rename the theme folder and reload the website. The default theme, say, twenty nineteen or something similar, will be reapplied in the absence of the current theme. If you find that the error is no more displayed, you can be sure that the theme is the troublemaker.
In such a case, you can go for a fresh new theme, or you can contact your current theme’s developer for help regarding the error.
Increasing The Maximum Upload Limit
The error may also occur if you have reached your maximum upload limit. To solve this, follow our article on How to Increase the Maximum File Upload Size in WordPress.
Uploading Plugins And Themes Carefully
When uploading themes and plugins, it should be carefully done such that you are uploading the correct zip file instead of a complete package. A package file includes the plugin zip file and also the instructions, demo content, license information, etc. You should unzip this package first, and upload only the plugin or theme file. Otherwise, you will encounter an error.
The Tip to Fix Your WordPress Issues
Fixing issues can always be frustrating. Without the apt solution for any issue, we will be in such pain that we won’t know what to do. Having a helpful article or guide will be a relief in such cases.
As a platform used by millions, the issues in WordPress will have plenty of solutions on the internet provided by many bloggers, sellers and service providers. These solutions are made available through the previous experiences they have had using the platform.
All you have to do is search google with your issue to find the solution. To know the solutions available in our articles, just add wpdeep.com as a suffix while searching.
Hope that we covered your issue from one of the above solutions. If you found a new solution which isn’t listed above, please share with us in comments so that we can improve the blog. Happy WordPressing! 🙂
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