GaryManners on "[Plugin: Jetpack by WordPress.com] Problems connecting to WordPress.com account"

@dalancarter Could you follow the instructions I posted above to run some tests, and then contact us if the WP_DEBUG test doesn't retu anything?

@GaryManners

I never heard back from the Jetpack folks either, even though I submitted a bug report.

I checked your account on our end, and although I can see you started 2 threads in the WordPress.com support forums, I can't find any email

If you contacted us using a different email address 2 weeks ago, we did reply already. Could you check your spam / junk folder, to make sure our reply didn't get filtered by your email provider?

If you didn't use the contact form in the Debug menu yet, could you do it?

Thanks!

Don't you have a list of server requirements for this interface to work?
I would think that you could just give a list of the files that need to be set at so-and-so permissions, etc. Can't you at least help this much?

Jetpack, much like the mobile apps or other services like IFTTT, use the XML-RPC file to communicate with your site:
https://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Support

Since you were able to connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account, we know that neither your hosting provider, nor a plugin, block access and communication with that file. That's also why the Jetpack Debug tool retus no error when you access it.

You consequently do not need to change any file permissions on your site.

That brings us to the red circle exclamation point and the Message "Error fetching plugins. Disconnect Site". That message can appear for multiple reasons, but in general 2 main issues can cause this:

1. Your hosting provider, although not completely blocking XML-RPC requests, does restrict some of the requests with specific security rules. Requests coming from WordPress.com get caught by one of those security rules and you get the error message.
2. Another plugin or your theme creates some PHP errors on your site, thus retuing errors for specific requests on some pages, like the requests made by the Jetpack API to your site's XML-RPC file. These errors appear when switching on WP_DEBUG, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

In your case, WP_DEBUG didn't tu up anything. That's why I would need more details about the connection between your site and WordPress.com. The contact form in the Debug screen will include that information.

I just "MOVED" my installation from Namecheap to a Digital Ocean VPS and the red exclamation mark disappeared immediately.

@William That's most likely because your Namecheap server had security rules like the ones I mentioned above.

PS. Jetpack sent me this link which was helpful

https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1/sites/WWW.EXAMPLE.COM

change "www.example.com" to your site. This was failing for me prior to moving to Digital Ocean.

That URL is indeed a nice way to test things. When loading your site on WordPress.com, WordPress.com does make such API requests to gather information about your site.