Blocked a frame with origin from accessing a cross-origin frame in wordpress

Question

I am working on a website, let say the website name is "https://website" (which is built on wordpress) in which I am getting the following error on console:

Uncaught DOMException: Blocked a frame with origin "https://website" from accessing a cross-origin frame.

    at contents (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:2:26921)

    at Function.map (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:2:3613)

    at a.fn.init.n.fn.(anonymous function) [as contents] (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:2:27001)

    at b (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=postbox,thickbox,hoverIntent,common,admin-bar,wp-a11y,updates,plugin-install,svg-painter,heartbeat,wp-auth-check,shortcode,wp-ba&load%5B%5D=ckbone,media-models,wp-plupload,wp-mediaelement,wp-api-request,media-views,media-editor,media-audiovideo,mce-view,imgareaselect,&load%5B%5D=image-edit&ver=4.9.8:347:103)

    at HTMLBodyElement.<anonymous> (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=postbox,thickbox,hoverIntent,common,admin-bar,wp-a11y,updates,plugin-install,svg-painter,heartbeat,wp-auth-check,shortcode,wp-ba&load%5B%5D=ckbone,media-models,wp-plupload,wp-mediaelement,wp-api-request,media-views,media-editor,media-audiovideo,mce-view,imgareaselect,&load%5B%5D=image-edit&ver=4.9.8:347:1306)

    at HTMLBodyElement.dispatch (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:3:12444)

    at HTMLBodyElement.r.handle (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:3:9173)

    at Object.trigger (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:3:11573)

    at Object.a.event.trigger (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:9:8275)

    at HTMLDivElement.<anonymous> (https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-core,jquery-migrate,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-widget,jquery-ui-mouse,jquery-ui-sortable,utils,underscore,wp-util,backbone,&load%5B%5D=moxiejs,plupload&ver=4.9.8:3:18991)

The above error is generated by clicking View Details section of wordpress plugins (as shown below):

This error seems to exist in every single wordpress plugins but it works when I open in a new tab but it doesn't work when I open in the same window.

Problem Statement:

I am wondering which file I need to modify in wordpress in order to solve this error. This error seems to exist in every wordpress plugins. As mentioned, it works in a new tab but fails to work in the same page.

I have a feeling I have to make some changes in the following file by seeing the error above (load-scripts.php, as the error is generated in that file) but not sure what line I need to add in order to make it work.

https://website/wp-admin/load-scripts.php

Answer 1

For posterity, chances are your X-Frame-Options have either been set to deny by the server or a configuration was appended by another plugin, but the blocked frame issue may happen when your server has not been configured correctly or was configured with strict policies to prevent any sort of access to cross-origin frames. Since every plugin is affected when viewing the Details link, my answer coincides with what @Blackbam has explained regarding how it functions by bringing up a thickbox and uses an i-frame when explaining why they all don't seem to appear.

I am wondering which file I need to modify in WordPress in order to solve this error. This error seems to exist in every wordpress plugins. As mentioned, it works in a new tab but fails to work in the same page.

So, for this particular case I don't believe it's necessarily a WordPress issue but a hosting server configuration and, depending on how much access you have to the server or wherever you're building the website, will determine what you can do to solve this error or whether or not you'll need to contact support to help you resolve it.

(Since this answer is simply added for posterity, please excuse the present tense references used as I realize it's been 3 years since this was asked)

Solutions:

There are two options that may work for you, and will vary depending on your server and your user access.

Solution 1: Adding permissions by modifying the .htaccess file

If your webhosting server is running on Apache or other supported web server, you can try adding the lines below to the .htaccess file:

<ifModule mod_headers.c>
        Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" env=HTTPS
        Header always set X-Frame-Options "sameorigin"
        Header setifempty Referrer-Policy: same-origin
</ifModule>

For syntax, you can refer to to this page. But as another option, instead of setting X-Frame-Options to "sameorigin" you can also specify a particular domain so as to preserve the security feature if preferred, such as:

Header always append X-Frame-Options "ALLOW-FROM website.com/*"

And replacing "website.com/*" with the domain you would like to permit, noting the space between ALLOW-FROM and the URL as further explained here. If you have other plugins installed that have modified your .htaccess file, be sure to place this entry above any Wordpress created entry as the .htaccess file is loaded in order and also note that it may not be supported in all browsers. Now, depending on the server security policies, if this doesn't work, then you'll have to move on to the next solution.

Solution 2: Modify your server configuration

Though I'm only including instructions for an Apache server from here as reference, this page includes configurations for Nginx, IIS, HAProxy, and Express as well. A full explanation can be found here if you have access to WHM and/or are running virtual servers and will require root access.

Log into the web server and look for the following file:

/etc/apache2/conf/httpd.conf

# or you can also create a new file named 'include.conf' if it
# doesn't already exist
/etc/apache2/conf.d/userdata/{USERNAME}/{DOMAIN-NAME}/include.conf

If the file exists, you can either comment out the line if it's set to DENY to disable the restriction or add the line below to the newly created configuration file:

<ifModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" env=HTTPS
    Header always set X-Frame-Options "sameorigin"
</ifModule>

You'll then need to rebuild the configuration and restart the Apache server.

You can rebuild by running the command

/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf

Then restart with

/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_httpd

Without the same-origin setting, even though Wordpress is installed on the server, the jquery requests are being blocked as part of preventing any embedding of content from other sites as well. Read more about Secure Headers from OWASP

Answer 2

Something bad has happend to your WordPress admin interface.

The first thing to notice is that the error you have described is a well known problem as you may have already noticed: SecurityError: Blocked a frame with origin from accessing a cross-origin frame

Look at the first answer there:

You can't access an with different origin using JavaScript, it would be a huge security flaw if you could do it. For the same-origin policy browsers block scripts trying to access a frame with a different origin.

Protocol, hostname and port must be the same of your domain, if you want to access a frame.

The second thing to notice is what the "View details" button in the WordPress admin interface does: It opens a ThickBox containing and iframe which is showing remote contents quite often within an IFrame. How this works is ecactly described here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Javascript_Reference/ThickBox

load-scripts.php is an important WordPress core file loaded in the admin which is used to load JavaScript files without having to embed each of them. Those JavaScript files are usually added to your WordPress admin with the admin_enqueue_scripts() function (https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference/admin_enqueue_scripts).

As your problem is quite uncommon and the "View details" button for Plugins works almost everytime there are only two possibilities:

1. The "View Details" IFrame is usually loaded from the same location where your WordPress is - therefore you might have a problem such that the browser wants to load it from a different host

This happens if you have some misconfiguration within your WordPress installation and Thickbox tries to get an IFrame from a host which the Browser thinks is another host. Configure WordPress correctly.

2. You have a badly programmed plugin or theme which is injecting a script causing this problem

Solution: Deactivate your theme and all your plugins one-by-one and see if the error still exists. This way you can find out the modification which causes the problem and maybe do a bug request to the plugin developers then.

It is almost 100% sure that a single plugin, theme or misconfiguration is causing this problem.