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Forum links 404-ing

DM Dan Mendelson
Dan Mendelson
Member
Member since Jun 2013
31 posts
Jul 29, 2014 · 4:17 pm · Edited

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

3 Answers

New Answer
YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member
Member since Nov 2008
16,437 posts
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.

DM Dan Mendelson
Dan Mendelson
Member
Member since Jun 2013
31 posts
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.

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member
Member since Nov 2008
16,437 posts
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.