License Activation and Connection Issues

Find Your Problem

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Site Verification Failed During Connection

During the OAuth connection flow, Benecaster.com sends a probe request to your site’s verify endpoint to confirm the site is publicly reachable. If the probe fails, you’ll see a “Site verification failed” notice with:

• The exact URL that was probed
• The HTTP response code and elapsed time (or a cURL error)
• Suggested next steps

To diagnose, test the endpoint yourself:

curl -I "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/benecaster/v1/verify?code=probe&nonce=probe&show_uuid=probe"

You should see HTTP/2 400 in the response — a 400 error is expected for a probe request (it means the endpoint exists and Benecaster is handling the request; the 400 indicates the code/nonce/show_uuid values are not real). Any other result indicates a problem:

• Connection refused / DNS failure — your site is not publicly accessible. Check your host’s external-facing configuration.
• HTTP 403 / 503 — a firewall, security plugin, or CDN is blocking the request. Add an exception for /wp-json/benecaster/v1/verify.
• HTTP 200 with HTML — a maintenance-mode plugin or page-cache plugin is serving HTML instead of routing to the REST API. Disable page caching for /wp-json/ paths and disable maintenance mode, then retry.
• SSL error — your SSL certificate is expired or the chain is incomplete. Renew or repair the certificate.

See Connecting Your Site for a detailed walkthrough of each cause. After resolving, click Connect to Benecaster again — the flow generates a fresh PKCE state on every attempt.

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Connection Failed

Check that your server can reach benecaster.com. Connecting requires an outbound HTTPS connection from your server to benecaster.com. Some hosts block outbound connections by default or require firewall rules to be opened. Go to Tools → Site Health → Info → WordPress Constants and look for any proxy settings that might be intercepting requests. If you’re on a managed host with a firewall, ask your host to allow outbound HTTPS to benecaster.com.

Check whether you’re at your show limit. Every plan allows a set number of connected shows, and Multi-Show and Studio allow more than one. If you’re at the limit, the connect screen says so and offers to disconnect an existing show to free a slot — you can do that yourself, without contacting us. You can also do it ahead of time from Connected shows on your account page, which is the route to use when the site you want to remove is one you can no longer reach. See Show and Site Limits.

Check that your plan is in good standing. A suspended or cancelled plan can’t connect a new show. Log in to benecaster.com and check the Your plan panel in My Account.

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Connected Successfully but Features Are Locked

If your show connected but premium features (subscriber authentication, private feeds) are still unavailable, the most likely cause is that no subscription plugin bridge has been connected yet.

Premium features are locked until a supported membership plugin (MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, or Restrict Content Pro) is installed, active, and connected through Benecaster’s setup wizard.

Go to Benecaster → Settings → Subscription and confirm a bridge is selected. If the list is empty, your membership plugin either isn’t installed or isn’t active.

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License Shows as Active but Plugin Reverted to Free

This happens when the license validation check-in fails and enough time passes without a successful check-in.

Benecaster is fail-open — short check-in failures don’t affect anything. But if check-ins have been failing for an extended period, you’ll see a warning in the Benecaster admin.

Check outbound connectivity. Go to Benecaster → Tools and use the connection test to confirm your server can reach the license server. If the test fails, investigate your host’s outbound firewall settings.

Check your subscription status. Log in to benecaster.com to confirm your subscription hasn’t lapsed or your payment method hasn’t expired.

Try disconnecting and reconnecting the show. Go to Benecaster → License, disconnect, then press Connect to Benecaster again. This forces a fresh check-in.

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benecaster.com and Your Site Disagree About Your Plan

Occasionally the two sides get out of step — most often because a message from our payment provider never reached us. It shows up in one of two ways:

• Your site says your plan has ended, but you’re still being charged. This is the one to tell us about straight away. Your feeds are restricted while your card is being billed, and we can put it right the same day.
• Your site says everything is fine, but you know you cancelled or stopped paying. Nothing is broken for you, so there’s nothing you need to do — but we’d rather hear from you than not.

We check for this ourselves every day and it usually gets fixed before anyone notices. A daily sweep on our side compares every licence against our payment provider’s records and flags any that disagree, so most of these are caught and corrected without anyone reporting them. If you spot it first, email support@benecaster.com with your Benecaster invoice number (it looks like BC-000012) and say which of the two you’re seeing.

Don’t disconnect and reconnect to try to fix it. That doesn’t change what our billing records say, and it takes your feeds down while you do it.

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Staging Site Counted Against Your Show Limit

Benecaster recognises several common staging and local URL patterns and doesn’t count them against your show limit — localhost, .local and .test domains, hostnames beginning staging., and the staging domains used by WP Engine, Kinsta and Flywheel.

.dev domains and bare IP addresses are not recognised. A dev site at 192.168.1.50 or mysite.dev is treated as production. Neither is a production-style domain like staging.yourshow.com when your host numbers it — staging1.yourshow.com is not currently matched even though staging.yourshow.com is.

If your environment isn’t recognised, tell Benecaster it’s a staging site directly. Add this to that site’s wp-config.php:

define( 'BENECASTER_STAGING', true );

That overrides the URL check entirely, and it’s the reliable answer for any setup we don’t detect. See Show and Site Limits for the full pattern list.

Alternatively, disconnect the staging site when you’re done with it, or contact support to discuss your setup.

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Still Stuck?

Contact support at support@benecaster.com. Include:

• Your Benecaster invoice number (BC-000012) or the email address on your benecaster.com account
• The URL of the site you’re trying to connect
• Any error message shown during the connection
• Your PHP version and WordPress version (visible in Tools → Site Health)