If you’re having trouble establishing an SSH or SFTP connection with Solid Backups — NextGen, this guide will walk you through common issues and troubleshooting steps to get you back on track.
Note: there are two different levels of “connected” when it comes to Solid Backups — NextGen. First the site needs to be connected to Solid Central, and then Solid Central grants the Solid Backups — NextGen application full SSH access to the server. This article aims to help you with that second and more critical connection specifically for backups. If you’re having trouble connecting to Solid Central in general, that’s usually a problem with Application Passwords on your WordPress site.
Troubleshooting Steps #
- Verify your credentials:
- Before you get too deep into diagnosing a connection issue, make sure that the problem is not as simple as an incorrect credential.
- Double-check the accuracy of your SSH/SFTP credentials (hostname, username, password/private key).
- Confirm that you’re using the correct port for your connection type (typically 22 for SSH and 22 or custom port for SFTP).
- Contact your hosting provider if you’re unsure about any of your credentials or settings.
- Test your connection manually:
- Often the easiest way to verify credentials is to try them in a different environment.
- Use an SSH client (like PuTTY or Terminal) or an SFTP client (like FileZilla) to attempt a manual connection to your server using the provided credentials. This can help isolate the issue to the plugin or your server configuration.
- See the video below of using Terminal on a Mac to test a manual connection
- Keep in mind that the connection you are testing by manually using a client application on your computer is the connection from that machine to your web server, whereas the connection you need ultimately to verify is the connection between SolidWP’s servers and your web server. So what you are trying to rule out with this step is something like “my web host has completely disabled SSH/SFTP.”
- While recognizing this sounds redundant: once you’ve successfully connected manually, that points back to either incorrect credentials or something else (below)
- Check your web host’s server-side firewall and security settings:
- Ensure that your hosting provider’s firewall allows incoming connections on the SSH/SFTP port you’re using.
- Some hosting providers may require you to whitelist specific IP addresses for SSH/SFTP connections. Check with your provider for their specific requirements.
- Confirm that Application Passwords is enabled on your site and that Solid Central managed to create the application password in your WP Profile during site connection.
- Here’s a guide to ensure Application Passwords is enabled when using Solid Security: https://www.loom.com/share/eefffff1351a4d7cbe63c7f387be2588?sid=8fe24df5-4641-4211-a609-598d19ebcd54
- Reach out for support:
- Whatever you do, don’t spend hours getting frustrated before reaching out for help. The SolidWP support team is here to help. Provide them with detailed information about the error messages you’re encountering and the steps you’ve already taken, and they’ll help you track down the issue.
