Support Forum

Advanced Search
Forum Scope


Match



Forum Options



Minimum search word length is 3 characters - maximum search word length is 84 characters
general-topic
Forum links 404-ing
Avatar
Dan Mendelson
Member
Free Members
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
Jul 29, 2014 - 4:17 pm

So I can't actually search the Simple:Press forums on this because a search term must be at least 4 characters long to ride and "404" doesn't measure up :)

Simple:Press seems somehow to have lost it's forum pages. We can get to the top level Forum page listing the sections (1) and forums (3) available (supposedly) but clicking either of the first two forum titles results in a 404 error and clicking the third whisks the user to a whole different - and decidedly non-forum - section of the site.

I tried deactivating all of the recently installed plugins; anything installed since the last time any of us actually knows the forums were still working. Nothing. 

Does anyone have an idea of how we might go about restoring the forum links? Ideally without losing any posts in the process (the Forum Home does still list numbers of topics and posts in each forum).

Thanks in advance,
Dan

Avatar
Yellow Swordfish
Glinton, England
SP Master
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
Jul 29, 2014 - 4:29 pm

Have you changed your WordPress permalinks at all recently? Or perhaps installled a plugin that might have reset them? 

Try this first - go to the forum admin > Integration > Page and Permalink panel and click on the Update Forum Permalinks button and see if that resolves it.

andy-signature.png
YELLOW
SWORDFISH
Avatar
Dan Mendelson
Member
Free Members
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
Jul 29, 2014 - 5:03 pm

 Recently? No. As far as any of us can recall, everything was functioning very nicely up until quite recently. The only plugins installed since have been one for WP database backup and one for editing wp-generated emails.

Having said that, I followed your instructions and it appears to have repaired whatever went wrong! So, thank you. The next time something like this happens, this'll be the first thing I try.

Avatar
Yellow Swordfish
Glinton, England
SP Master
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
Jul 29, 2014 - 5:27 pm

WordPress stores page permalink 'rules' in a database record that should be quite safe from damage or removal. When SP is first installed it creates some extra data for rewrite rules and 'flushes' them which means that WordPress recreates the db record this time including the forum rules.

We have encountered a plugin - and i really can not recall which it was - that also added rules but did not flush the data properly which meant the rules were rebuilt but without including the forum rules this time. and this can lead directly to 404 errors showing up. And that is why I asked the question.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the record did sustain damage through something happening but that would be most rare. If it happens again it is worth checking to see if any plugins DO write rules - i.e., use a WP page that has dynamic urls - like the forum does.

andy-signature.png
YELLOW
SWORDFISH
Forum Timezone: Europe/Stockholm
Most Users Ever Online: 1170
Currently Online:
Guest(s) 1
Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)
Top Posters:
Mr Papa: 19448
Ike: 2086
Brandon: 864
kvr28: 804
jim: 650
FidoSysop: 577
Conrad_Farlow: 531
fiddlerman: 358
Stefano Prete: 325
Member Stats:
Guest Posters: 620
Members: 17365
Moderators: 0
Admins: 4
Forum Stats:
Groups: 7
Forums: 17
Topics: 10128
Posts: 79626