all main page links broken after recovering from hack

  • Resolved cmb42

    (@cmb42)


    12 years, 6 months ago

    HELP! I need some assistance in finishing the recovery of a hacked website. If you’d like to view, it is at

    w4ft.com

    Recently, my site was hacked by some *&^!*&^% from China. I have removed their crap and have been struggling with the restoration. (I found out the hard way that my web host has less than effective restore tools, unless you want to pay for the service.) I have the main page back up and the dashboard appears fully functional, but I still have a major problem.

    EVERY link on the main page (to other pages on my site) is broken. I click on any link and I get something like this example:
    ———-
    Not Found
    The requested URL /2012/03/arrl-dx-ssb-contest-2012-and-the-new-80-meter-loop/ was not found on this server.

    Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
    ———-

    Except that the URL is different for each link, this error happens for every link – “more…” links in posts, page links in the menu at the top of the page, archives, etc. The only links that do work are to other sites.

    I am reasonably sure that the database is correctly backed up and the content is intact because I can go in through the dashboard and edit any page. When I do this, all the content appears to be present and correct, including photos.

    I have also reinstalled the latest version of WP via the dashboard.

    In short, the content appears to be all there, but something is broken that is preventing all but the home page to appear. I suspect it is something simple but I am out of ideas on what it might be.

    Any ideas or suggestions ?????

    Cliff

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  • check your .htaccess file

    Thread Starter cmb42

    (@cmb42)

    RESOLVED.
    It took me a while, and some digging, but I found a clue in another thread about migrating to another site.

    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Moving_WordPress#Moving_WordPress_to_a_New_Server

    The clue was to go to Dashboard -> Settings -> General and verify the entry in the Site Address (URL) field.

    As it turned out, the restore process that I used added a redundant directory to the path: /public_html/public_html/… Remember, I said that LunarBreeze had a crappy backup and restore process. In my opinion, unless you knew exactly what it does, or wanted to pay for their premium service, it was prone to errors on putting everything back where it belongs.

    I tested my theory by changing the entry in the Site Address field to match the redundant path and all the problems went away.

    My next step will be to rebuild everything from an earlier backup, wipe out everything on the server and rebuild it from the backup.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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