2.3.1 update broke my paths

Try editing a Page (not a Post) and saving the changes. Then see if the link works.

Could be the permalink bug my wife has been dealing with (and others deny exists). The “hello-world” bit in the permalink is the tip-off — it looks like the slug for one post or page is getting tacked onto another’s permalink.

It’s a back-and-forth thing. You save edits to a Page once, and it breaks all permalinks. Save edits again, and the error’s gone.

It looks like a missing strong terminator (” or ‘) somewhere in the saving script.

Hi, Travis:

Because I didn’t find an answer here, I tore out my install and did a fresh 2.3.1 install, deleted “Hello, World,” and put all my posts and pages ack in, again setting my Permalinks ONLY to “/%postname%/” Unfortunately, all my links look like this:

/blog/category/eyes (“eyes” is a category)
/blog/category/anti-aging/moisturizers (“anti-aging” is the parent category of “moisturizers”)

I need that damned word “category” out of there so I can go out and start getting my backlinks, sending my feeds out, etc, but I don’t wanna do it with that word in there, because if this bug can be fixed, I don’t want people linking to something that’s busted one day, then fixed the next, although I’m losing hope for a fix. It’s been busted even since the moment I installed 2.3.1 all nice and fresh and clean. I’m terribly frustrated.

I hafta admit, , though, tht I take some kind of comfort from the fact that it’s not just me, even though it means someone else is suffering. I *am* sorry about that.

(Oh, and no, editing a *page* didn’t take the “category” out of my paths.) (Rats!)

Binky

I fail to understand the problem. You will have the word “category” in permalinks for category archive pages. But not in single post pages. But that’s not new at all, that’s normal. It’s been doing that forever.

Could you be more clear about your problem? Or even better, post a link to your site with examples so we can see for ourselves just what you’re talking about?

Hi, Otto42:

Didn’t know whether it was cool to post links. If it is, here you go:

https://lipstick-face.com/blog/

Clicking the categories on the left, you’ll see the word “category” in the URL. These aren’t archives (not the way I understand archives, anyway); these are current posts.

I’d be grateful if you’d peep at my blod and tell me whether maybe I’m all wet. I don’t understand what purpose the word “category” in my path serves. It adds no useful info.

Thanks very much,

Binky

I don’t see anything wrong with your URLs there. And yeah, you’re misunderstanding the term “archives”.

In WordPress terms, an archive page is any page other than the front page which shows a collection of multiple posts, current or not. You have Category Archives, you have Monthly Archives, you have Author Archives, etc… These pages all use the archive.php template as a possible fallback in the Template Hierarchy.

The “category” in the URL is a keyword that tells the URL parsing engine that the user is attempting to pull up a single category of posts. You can change the word “category” to whatever you please, but you cannot eliminate it entirely. There must be some keyword to tell it that you want to see a category archive. This keyword can be changed on the Options->Permalinks page, under “Category base”.

Your category URLs currently look like this:
https://lipstick-face.com/blog/category/anti-aging/moisturizers

Your single post URLs currently look like this:
https://lipstick-face.com/blog/the-blush-thats-on-everyones-lips-if-youre-lucky

The “/%postname%/” that you’re talking about is what sets your single post permalinks, not the category permalinks. Category permalinks always take the form of a keyword followed by the category path. The reason that the keyword is necessary is simple: Without it, WordPress would have no way to tell the difference. Given a URL of
https://lipstick-face.com/blog/anti-aging , what would be the thing to display? The category of “anti-aging” or the post named “anti-aging”? There’s no way to tell from the URL alone. A keyword is needed to distinguish between the two.

Ah! Otto42, I appreciate your sticking with me and helping me understand this. The word “category” looks like a wart in my URL, and I’m having a hard time coming up with anything better to replace it, but at least now I understand why it’s there. While I like to think people are smarter than to come up with post title than “anti-aging,” I hafta remember hat many aren’t, so it’s gotta be this way. (sigh) Thanks very much for helping me out. I’ll go get to work, see whether I can cough something up, or else just be happy that all’s right in the WordPress world after all!

Binky