September 8, 2004
“Sorry, you need to enable sending referrers, for this feature to work.” error when trying to activate plugins in WordPress
I was playing around with WordPress, and went to activate one of the default plugins that comes installed with it. In the past, this was effortless. This time I got an error message of:
Sorry, you need to enable sending referrers, for this feature to work.
As it turns out, this got ‘broken’ by the stupid Norton Internet Security software that came preinstalled on my latest PC, which by default turns on your firewall on your computer and has privacy protection built in to block referrer strings. It also destroys the looks and feel, as well as functionality, of many websites through the use of what they refer to as ‘ad blocking’, but which really blocks much more than ads - including every affiliate link (text or otherwise!) or google adsense link out there. That’s messed up.
Want your computer working the way it was before Norton Internet Security ruined your surfing and blogging experience?
Want your WordPress plugins working again? Just open Norton IS and turn off both the settings for ‘privacy control’ and ‘ad blocking’.
Or better yet, uninstall it all together — I found that it slowed down my internet use (especially receiving of email in outlook) to the point of being almost unusable - on a brand new 3.4 gHz P4 machine! Instead, use the firewall that comes with Windows XP SP2, and go with Mcafee for your antivirus software.
Tada! All is well again.
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October 23, 2004
jarra said:
thanks, worked for me.
Emily said:
You’re very welcome - glad I could help
November 11, 2004
Andrea said:
Thank you! I am finally able to add stuff to my site! LOL. *hugs*
December 14, 2004
JErm said:
I don’t have Norton Internet Security and I still get that message. I’m running a test environment under WinXP SP2 using Omnicron 3.0.3a. Do you have any ideas? If you could email me back it would be great. Thanks!
January 6, 2005
Preston Taylor Holmes said:
Great tips! This one helped me out tremendously.
February 16, 2005
DJ_Antie said:
Hi.
I get this message when I try to delete a post in Weblog:
“Sorry, you need to enable sending referrers, for this feature to work.”
I’m using Sygate Personal Firewall Pro and there is no option for turning off privicy control.What I have to do?
February 20, 2005
Phil said:
Don’t get hung up on firewalls - it might also be a browser thing - particularly if any of you are using Firefox set up to respect your privacy.
Switching to IE to administer WP did the job for me.
You could switch off the appropriate extensions or whatever, but it’s easier just to fire up IE.
March 14, 2005
guht said:
I actually encountered this problem recently and nothing seemed to work…
I did some debugging in the code and echoed the adminurl and referer url, and noticed they were different. I then realized this was because my actual url was different because of dynamic dns forwarding.
Perhaps some of you are using such forwarding services. If so back sure you are using the correct url. ie instead of www.foo.com - it might be something like www2.foo.com:6000 - the 6000 being the port number you might be using cause your ISP is blocking port 80.
March 16, 2005
Shadow said (trackback):
How To Blog:
Phil is right — where Firefox fails, IE works. There is probably a hack for this, but where is it? How To Blog: ‘Sorry, you need to enable sending referrers, for this feature to work.’ error when trying to activate plugins in WordPress Don’t…
April 10, 2005
Benn said:
Hey there! Thanks for this. I’m migrating from MT to WP, and this was starting to frustrate me!
Thanks again!!
May 1, 2005
Slycer said:
Thanks Antie, worked for me!
May 2, 2005
Eric said:
Thanks! This FINALLY did it!
May 10, 2005
Lee said:
Muchos thank-you’s, it’s working again.
June 15, 2005
mL said:
Thx !!!
August 26, 2005
Dennis said:
thanks!!
January 4, 2006
Heintz said:
There are two kind of people I sincerely dislike, those who designed and built Norton IS and those who pre-installed it onto my machine…
February 9, 2006
Elza said:
I enjoy your site very much! THANK YOU
March 6, 2006
Laura said:
Thank you SO much. I couldn’t find any answers at WordPress and you solved my problem in 2 seconds.
Emily from How to Blog said:
you are all most welcome — I’m glad that I was able to help! When I first got this error message I almost pulled my hair out trying to figure out what the problem was, and really couldn’t find any information on the Internet — trial and error found the solution. Happy to share!
March 14, 2006
Curt said:
I’ve worked with Blogger and Blogware but now my nightmare journal through WordPress has begun. I ‘enabled referrers’ according to the WP instructions for both IE and FF. No go. I shut off the ad block and personal firewall on my Norton. No go. I can make a post no problem but I CAN’T ADD A LINK. WTF? Any help would really be appreciated.