404 on fresh install

Also found this: Solve 404 Error When Activating Plugin In WordPress

I’m not saying slow queries is the problem in your case, but according to the author slow queries could be a problem in some cases.

Also the contents of any .htaccess files could be useful. Check for such a file in the wordpress root directory (referred to as / hereafter), /wp-content/ and /wp-content/plugins/.

If you do not want to post it publicly, you can email me at: gnot at g-loaded dot eu

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

No, I haven’t had this error for any other plugins. And just to test, I installed a new plugin after errors with yours, and that installed and activated fine.

Yes it’s very weird that renaming works. In fact, the plugin is working fine without any issues since I renamed – I can access the settings, and it displays on all my posts as expected. Just that I had to remove the dash in the php file name!

Not sure if slow queries is the culprit here because it would have affected the plugin after renaming too, right? Something in the dash seems to be triggering a problem – and not from your side, must be something on my webserver here or perhaps the .htaccess files. I’ll have a look at those now and email them to you.

Yeah, slow queries should not be the issue here. I just posted it as an interesting finding.

Most probably, the 404 error is not triggered by the plugin. So, why renaming the file eliminates the error? I have 2 explanations:

1) As you have mentioned, the dash in the filename might falsely trigger a security mechanism on your server (security wordpress plugins, .htaccess, virtualhost configuration, security apache modules like mod-security etc). IMHO, this is a possible scenario, but very unlikely. You could test it by adding a dummy file named cc-configurator-dummy.php somewhere in wp-contents and try to access it with the browser.

2) Sometimes, WordPress can be really weird with redirections. It is possible that the initial 404 error might still be displayed because it has been cached somewhere. I would highly recommend doing the following:

1. While having renamed the file to ccconfigurator.php or whatever without the dash, deactivate the plugin from the WP admin panel and then delete it (again using the WP admin panel)
2. Reload the WordPress page containing the list of installed plugins and make sure Creative-Commons-Configurator is not listed there.
3. Connect via FTP or WebFTP and check that the plugin directory wp-content/plugins/creative-commons-configurator-1 has been deleted. If not, delete it manually.
4. If a caching plugin like W3TC or Super-Cache is used, empty the page cache if possible and check whether the plugin is configured to cache any error messages.
5. Although not necessary since this plugin does not add any custom rewrite rules, I’d recommend going to Settings->Permalinks and just re-save the permalink structure without changing anything.
6. Log out from WordPress
7. Close all tabs and clean all the browser cache (temporary internet files, history and cookies, browsing and search history etc)
8. Log into WordPress
9. Install the Creative-Commons-Configurator plugin using the WP admin panel.

If nothing of the above works, then I’m really out of ideas… ??

My opinion is that there was a problem initially with the plugin and the server’s configuration (a small detail like the construction of the paths of the plugin’s modules). After my changes in the latest releases, the problem has probably been fixed (and this is why it works with the renamed file), but the initial error message when accessing cc-configurator.php has been cached somewhere and you still see it.

Hope these help.

I replied before seeing the .htaccess file you emailed me. The htaccess file seems fine. No rule that could possibly block cc-configurator.php.

BTW, the response headers indicate that the server used is nginx, which does not support htaccess files.

Hi,

Here’s some more findings.

The dash itself does not seem to be the problem. I can rename the file to c-cconfigurator.php or ccc-onfigurator.php and it works! But any variant of cc-configurator.php like cc-configurator-dum.php or even cc-dummy.php don’t work.

In fact, I don’t think its even the position of the dash. If I rename the file to cd-configurator.php it works fine. So an URL starting with “cc-” is what seems to be causing a redirect.

I am not sure it’s a caching issue either. Coz if it were a caching issue then a different filename such as cc-dummy.php should have worked, right? But those too fail. I even renamed the plugin folder to something else, but it still fails as long as the file has cc-.

Maybe my webhost uses Apache as a web server but Nginx as a reverse proxy? That would explain the Nginx headers?

I am going to mark this one as resolved. Considering it only affects me maybe it’s some configuration on my webserver or some installed plugin. Whenever you update this plugin in the future I’ll just rename the filename to ccc.php. ??

Hi, could you create a dummy file, named cc-configurator.php, put it in the wp-content directory and try to access it with the web browser?

Yup, I can access it.

I put one under wp-content/plugins and can access that too.

So, the 404 (Not found) error is returned when accessing /wp-content/plugins/creative-commons-configurator-1/cc-configurator.php. Trying to access cc-configurator.php under any other directory works as expected?

Please note that accessing cc-configurator.php directly should return a 403 error (Forbidden). This is normal and the expected behavior.

PS: I see the header Vary: Cookie,User-Agent in the HTTP responses. Could you try accessing the file using a different browser (different User-Agent string) if available?

I created a file cc-configurator.php under a different plugin folder and I was able to access it.

Then I created a new file (as opposed to renaming like I was doing so far) under your plugins folder – and presto! it works now. I can browse to https://rakhesh.com/wp-content/plugins/creative-commons-configurator-1/cc-configurator.php and does not give an error.

So I went back and renamed the original file from ccc.php back to cc-configurator.php. Tried accessing https://rakhesh.com/wp-content/plugins/creative-commons-configurator-1/cc-configurator.php both under Chrome and IE and I get a 403 error as expected.

So I go back to the WordPress plugins menu and try activating it now (the link is https://rakhesh.com/wp-admin/plugins.php?action=activate&plugin=creative-commons-configurator-1%2Fcc-configurator.php&plugin_status=all&paged=1&s&_wpnonce=9d6187d54d) and it still does not work! ??

I guess this means something in WordPress (or one of my plugins) must be causing an issue?

A quick note: AFAIK, the _wpnonce query argument is regenerated every time the page is loaded. The above wpnonce value most probably is expired. So, I’d suggest not to use this link above while trying to activate the plugin, but use the relevant activation link generated by wordpress.

I’m really out of ideas here…

Oh, sorry. I was clicking the activation link each time so the wpnonce was changing. I just posted the URL from my last attempt just so you can see what it looks like.

It’s fine. Looks to be a problem that’s only affecting me, so no point wasting too much time over it. In future if you get complaints from anyone else, and renaming the file helps them, perhaps we can investigate whether that person and I have any common plugins. You have my email address so just drop a note there (or to this post).

Thanks for persisting with this George. ??

OK.

Thanks for your feedback on this,
George

Looks to be a problem that’s only affecting me, so no point wasting too much time over it.

Actually, I’m getting this error too.

Would it be better for me to start a new thread or…?

@fakob: Could you try renaming the main plugin file as rakhesh mentioned above?

As far as the plugin is concerned, I could not replicate this issue no matter what I’ve tried.

May I ask what hosting provider you use?

George