For a few days now, I’ve been stressing because I thought my website had a virus problem.
Whenever I open it on my iPhone, it gets redirected to a bunch of urls until it lands in the app store.
I thought I had been hacked, so I went into a lot of forums and followed their advice – changed my password, deactivated a bunch of plugins, deleted my ads, reinstalled all my files, changed themes, installed Wordfence. My site was given a clean bill of health, and yet, I still got the same problem. Nothing worked.
I finally hired a guy on Fiverr to look into it. It was this guy, in case you’re ever having WordPress problems. Thank goodness he only cost 5 bucks!
He fixed it, and I was so happy that I even raved about him on twitter.
Then the next day, I was browsing my website when it happened again! Nooo!!!! 😭😭😭
The problem seemed to be intermittent. Sometimes it would happen, other times it wouldn’t. It came to a point when I would load my site, hold my breath, and see if it got redirected or not. I would only let my breath out if it didn’t.
Then during one surfing session, I was on another site when the same thing happened, too.
Lightbulb moment. Could the problem possibly be my phone and not my website after all?
So I tested this theory and went to the site of another blog which I know to be using wordpress genesis framework, same as mine.
Sure enough, it had the same issue.
So all this time, the problem was with my phone, not my website!
I am so happy to know this!
Okay, sure, my phone has a problem, but that’s one I can handle! If it had been really my website with the problem and all of my readers faced the same issue I did, then that’s the bigger problem for me, because more and more people are consuming websites via their mobile devices and might have problems accessing my site. #bloggerproblems
I haven’t figured out how to solve the redirect bug, but I found a workaround instead – I downloaded the chrome app and will use that instead of Safari if the issue occurs.
And now I can rest in peace.
P.S. If you know how to solve the Safari issue, please let me know!
P.P.S. The title is inspired by Friends episodes, which I’ve been rewatching recently. They will never be not funny! My most favourite show of all time!
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Hahahahahhahhaha.. Being an IT student, reading this blog post really gave me the laugh of a lifetime! The images you’ve added are so apt and funny at the same time.. 😀
I suspect my reactions would play out very much the same way… I’m glad it’s all sorted!
I would have freaked out too!
Oh that false alarm!
I’ve had something similar before and i think it’s called adtracker.
People basically redirect you to their app on the App Store.
It will just be a link that you’ve been on previously that keeps redirecting you.
Try deleting all of your cookies and website data – worked for me.
Although sometimes that doesn’t work for other people so its worth checking whether it occurs on your network provider or wifi provider, because it could be your wifi not your phone? xx
I suspect my reactions would play out very much the same way… I’m glad it’s all sorted!
Oh that false alarm!
Hahahahahhahhaha.. Being an IT student, reading this blog post really gave me the laugh of a lifetime! The images you’ve added are so apt and funny at the same time.. 😀
I’ve had something similar before and i think it’s called adtracker.
People basically redirect you to their app on the App Store.
It will just be a link that you’ve been on previously that keeps redirecting you.
Try deleting all of your cookies and website data – worked for me.
Although sometimes that doesn’t work for other people so its worth checking whether it occurs on your network provider or wifi provider, because it could be your wifi not your phone? xx
I would have freaked out too!