Fix 403 Errors That Appear In Breakdance

If you have a WordPress website that uses the Breakdance theme and the Wordfence Security plugin, you may see 403 Error messages appear when using the Breakdance builder.

The Wordfence Security plugin aggressively checks for potential threats to a website. This issue is caused by the default XSS Cross Site Scripting setting in Wordfence. With this setting enabled, Wordfence sees the way Breakdance (and other WordPress themes) uses cross-site scripting as a potential security risk. This setting catches any potentially insecure requests and blocks them, which triggers the 403 error messages. The problem is these requests are not a threat.

Disabling this setting in Wordfence stops the 403 error messages from appearing. But don’t worry… WordPress defends against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks through a combination of input sanitization, output escaping, and security features like nonces and Content Security Policy (CSP). WordPress’s cross-site scripting (XSS) security measures are strong, and more than enough in most cases without enabling the extra blocking this Wordfence setting does.

Follow the steps below to fix this issue and stop those error messages from appearing:

1 | Login to the WordPress admin.

2 | Go to Wordfence > Firewall

3 | Scroll down to Rules and locate the XSS Cross Site Scripting setting.

4 | Click to de-activate the XSS Cross Site Scripting setting.

5 | Click the Save Changes button (top-right).

This fix stops error messages from appearing without compromising the added security features and benefits the Wordfence plugin provides.

Cheers!