Only new pages are 404 not found

I’m having the same issues over at matthewebel.com as well. I’ve checked to make sure my database table is auto-incrementing, set the .htaccess permissions correctly, rebuilt my permalinks, even changed permalinks to a different set and back again, still can’t create new pages.

Nothing has changed with my web host either, so it’s not a PHP or MySQL issue.

Oddly enough, this started when I tried upgrading to 2.3 but it fubar’ed my tags (using simpletags) and there was no way to migrate them to 2.3’s half-assed tag implementation… so I downgraded back to 2.2. I’m beginning to think that the 2.3 upgrade may have borked something in the database that a downgrade doesn’t fix.

I figured out what’s causing this issue on my blog. I’m using “Category Levels” plug-in. Therefore, some of the categories are Private and accessible only with login. The problem is that by default I have new posts go to a Private category. I had no idea that it also affecting Pages. The only way I figured it out is by looking at MySQL table: wp_post2cat. I manually changed Category ID to Public category and the pages showed up on the blog.

Anyone knows if there is a way to have Pages be created in a complitely separate category because once the Page is created I see no one of changing Category through Control Panel.

The cause: Although not obvious, Pages – for internal reasons – are assigned automatically to the default category. There is something related to how the WP engine works internally… don’t ask me the details ??
(because I dont’ know)

The workaround: set as default category something that is visible, not hidden.
I assume you changed the default category recently, that’s why the old Pages (being in another category) still show up, while the new one don’t.

That does not solve the problem for me, I have never changed my category layout. I also have checked in the database and new pages are posting to the same category ID as old pages. In fact, new page db entries are identical to old page db entries except for ID, Title, etc. The new pages still will not appear.

What is causing this bug? I’ve been searching the support forums for weeks now and I’m not the only one getting frustrated by this.