WordPress Admin Dashboard is not displayed properly on a website hosted in Plesk: "access forbidden by rule" or "client denied by server configuration"

Kuzma Ivanov

Updated June 15, 2026 07:23

Plesk for Windows Plesk for Linux kb: technical ext: wptk

Applicable to:

Plesk for Linux
Plesk for Windows

Symptoms

WordPress Admin Dashboard is not displayed properly: layout is broken, css/js scripts are not loaded.
One of the following error messages appear in domain's log at Domains > example.com > Logs:

CONFIG_TEXT: access forbidden by rule, client: 203.0.113.2, server: example.com, request: "GET /wp-admin/load-scripts.php?... HTTP/2.0", host: "example.com", referrer: "https://example.com/wp-admin/update-core.php"

CONFIG_TEXT: AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-admin/load-scripts.php, referer: https://example.com/wp-admin/

CONFIG_TEXT: 403 GET /wp-admin/load-styles.php

CONFIG_TEXT: 403 GET /wp-admin/load-scripts.php

If LiteSpeed is used instead of Apache, the following error message appears in /var/www/vhosts/example.com/logs/error_log:

CONFIG_TEXT: [ACL] Access to context [/wp-admin/] is denied!
Browser DevTools (F12) > Console tab shows that load-styles.php and/or load-scripts.php cannot be processed by a web-browser with a 403 Forbidden error.

Cause

JavaScript conflict in WordPress theme or plugin.

Resolution

Log in to Plesk.
Go to Domains > example.com > WordPress tab > click Apply critical security measures (under Security).
On the Security Status page, select the option Disable scripts concatenation for WordPress admin panel and click Secure.

Note: If the Secure button is grayed out, select the option Disable scripts concatenation for WordPress admin panel and click Revert. Then secure again.

Other options to disable scripts concatenation for WordPress admin panel via wp-config.php:

Plesk interface

Log in to Plesk.
Go to Domains > example.com > Dashboard tab > Files.
Click on wp-config.php file to open.
Add the following record at the end of the file before the require_once directive:

CONFIG_TEXT: define('CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS', false);
Save the changes.

Command-line inteface

Connect to your Plesk server via SSH.
Open the file /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-config.php in a text editor (for example, vi editor).
Add the following line at the end of the file before the require_once directive:

CONFIG_TEXT: define('CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS', false);
Save the changes and close the file.

Note: In some cases, website code may require the CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS option to be enabled. In this case, revert the security option Disable scripts concatenation for WordPress admin panel or remove this directive from wp-config.php.