403 Forbidden Error

WP Recipe Maker uses the WordPress REST API for a lot of its backend functionality: creating and saving recipes, listing recipes on the overview page, calculating nutrition facts, ...

If you're getting an error message during one of those actions and it mentions the "403" code or "403 Forbidden", it means that something thinks you don't have the correct permissions and is blocking your access.

This can happen with firewall or security plugins, for example. If you're using one of those, check if there's anything in their logs that should show what and why it blocked you. Usually it's easy to also whitelist this particular action or your particular IP address, so that it doesn't block you again.

If you don't use a firewall plugin, it's also possible you have an external firewall in place blocking things. A common one is Cloudflare's WAF (Web Application Firewall). Adding a firewall rule there should fix the problem.

It could also be caused by mod_security running on your webserver, mistaking our API requests for potential threats. This can even be triggered by certain words or numbers in the recipe.

We recommend contacting your webhost and explaining the issue as it should be possible to fix this by reconfiguring mod_security. Alternatively you could try disabling mod_security altogether, although you should do so at your own risk.