Changed Permalinks and site is gone!

Delete your .htaccess file via FTP to force reset your permalinks to default.

Thank you for the reply but there isn’t a .htaccess file, I’ve turned show invisible files on and still no joy. I’ve even uploaded a htaccess file from another wordpress blog that uses the /%postname% permalink setting and the site is still very much not there.

Did you say you can not even view your pages through the admin screen? I would check the database. It sounds like you crashed it. If so try a repair or restore.

@patrickmullen: don’t mess with your database just yet. Even if you have to, you can edit the permalinks setting in the database rather than restore a backup.

First, delete the .htaccess file that you uploaded. Then rename your plugins folder to force deactiavtion of all plugins which might be the casue.

If that doesn’t work, do you have phpmyadmin in your control panel? You can clear the permalink setting in the database, which is something I’ve had to do in the past.

Thanks for your help on this songdog & terry. I’ve renamed the plugin folder and it has brought back up the homepage but none of the other pages can be found under the existing links and the pages/ permalinks still aren’t visible in the admin. I haven’t had a look around in phpmyadmin yet but will post back when I do in the morning.

Again, thank you for your help.

Thank you Songdogtech, resetting it to default worked perfectly. For anyone else who has done the same thing here is the fix that worked for me:

1. Turn off all plugins, this didn’t solve the problem but it did get the homepage displaying again and at least bought me some time.

2. Go into your control panel and select domain, database and the DB WebAdmin. This opens in a pop up so be sure you have them turned on for that site. Ultimately the end result is to open up phpmyadmin so if the route through your control panel is different don’t be afraid to deviate from the above.

3. Once inside phpmyadmin select wp_option, then from the right hand column select ‘Browse’ from the section headers.

4. Under the option_name row you need to find permalink_structure, for me it was on page 2.

5. Click on the little pen like icon towards the left side and change the content to blank.

6. Do a little dance and then thank songdogtech for his help (can be done in reverse order if needs be)

Glad that worked out. But I’ll let everyone else dance if they want too, as I’m well aware that I have two left feet ??

Patrick, Terry, Songdogtech – I could kiss you all! I had the same problem yesterday and was almost about to rebuild the website that took me a solid 4 weeks to make. I read through this thread and followed Patrick’s advice to the letter. Many many thanks.
Cheers,
Dave