Bridie,
To clarify a few things:
- The plugin is designed to cease function when deactivated. This means that if it is not turned on (or was turned on and set up previously but is deleted or turned off), it will not perform any redirects or function in any way. The ONLY exception to this, is if you have caching setup, and then you must clear your site cache to clear the cached redirects (this is due to the caching and not the plugin).
- The plugin has a method in it’s options to remove all database entries when deactivated. So as long as everything is working as it should, you check the boxes and save the options, and then turn the plugin off. This should remove all the entries in the database.
- The thread you are referring to on removing data is over 3 years old and refers to a much older version of the plugin. Remove the code from your functions file as it is no longer relevant.
- Leaving the entries in the database from the previous install will not hurt anything and will not cause any from of ‘rouge’ activity, like unwanted redirects – they are just settings and need the plugin to work. At the worst, they just take up a little space in the database and do not hurt anything at all.
Without knowing what 403 errors you are getting and without knowing what you have setup on your site (or how it is programmed), it is impossible to say what the cause it of the errors. One thing I can say with quite a bit of certainty, is that it is most likely NOT the result of the plugin – especially if the plugin is off or removed and your cache was cleared (barring you have caching set up).
“403” errors are a “Forbidden” notice. This generally means that the page or directory you are trying to access does not have browsing permissions. It sounds like you have more of a file or directory permissions issue than anything else. The first thing I would do, is check your file/folder permissions for the site and make sure they are setup correctly. Additionally, check your permalinks setup and reset it if you have not. If you have a bad setup from an outdated .htaccess file, that can also cause the 403 errors because the URL does not resolve to the correct or intended place.
One last thing to check – If you have folders set up, for example ‘documents’ and you have a page named ‘documents’ and have the %pagename% permalink structure set up, that will cause all requests for that page and subpages to go to that folder and look for a file (index.php) in that folder or subfolders. If directory browsing it turned off, that would throw a 403 error or a 404 error for anything related to the directory.
Good luck with the hunt.
Regards,
Don
