I installed Wordpress with Easy Engine and I am receiving an error that Wordpress cannot connect to Wordpress.org

March 21, 2017 2.5k views
Nginx Ubuntu 16.04
mikebio
By:
mikebio

I also have LetsEncrypt installed. Here is the full error:

FastCGI sent in stderr: “PHP message: PHP Warning: An unexpected error occurred. Something may be wrong with WordPress.org or this server configuration.
WordPress could not establish a secure connection to WordPress.org. Please contact your server administrator.

Everything was working fine up until a few hours ago. I tried to search online for a solution but couldn’t find one.

This error is preventing me from downloading and installing plugins.

Any suggestions?

Mike

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5 Answers
hansen March 21, 2017

You’re probably hit by the latest security update from Ubuntu, which messed up some certificates, which PHP uses to make the secure connection.
https://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-3239-1/

Run this service php7.0-fpm restart and it should fix it. Or simply restart your server.
People running Apache, needs to restart that with service apache restart

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  • mikebio March 21, 2017

    Thank you so much. Honestly, that was a huge help and it worked immediately.

    Seriously… thank you!

ananth March 22, 2017

I have the same problem as Mike. “WordPress could not establish a secure connection to WordPress.org. Please contact your server administrator.” I cannot update plugins or download themes.

Also, in the Wordpress News section on the WP dashboard I get this error “RSS Error: WP HTTP Error: User has blocked requests through HTTP.”

I have installed Wordpress on a 512mb digital ocean droplet using Serverpilot. Lets encrypt certificate is installed.

Please help.

Thanks,
Ananth

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  • ananth March 22, 2017

    I ran these commands to restart services
    sudo service nginx-sp restart , sudo service apache-sp restart
    and sudo service php7.0-fpm-sp restart. But no luck.

    • ArchNoob September 16, 2017

      Hi ananth,

      I just got this problem today and I fixed it by

      sudo systemctl restart php-fpm.service

      sudo systemctl restart php-fastcgi.service

      sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

      Reloading my wordpress site and it worked!

ArchNoob September 16, 2017
[deleted]
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johnwilliam June 16, 2018

I Used ee site update domainname.com –wp –wpfc for cache and It worked For my site spotifypremiumapkdld.com

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KairyKalia1 July 26, 2018

hi, I have faced the same issue, I am also used ee site update domainname.com –wp –wpfc For my site www.spotifyplus.com

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