[Plugin: Google XML Sitemaps] sitemap changes itself and has weird entries

Have a link to your site? That would help.
Is there a differenc if you generate it manually?

This is the one where all but 1 page were lost. I have corrected that manually from the admin interface. Question still is: why did it happen and how to prevent it from happening again?

https://febauma.de/sitemap.xml

This is the one where non-existing page names show up:
https://internetbusinessmastermind.com/sitemap.xml

Look for links in the sitemap like:
https://internetbusinessmastermind.com/1357
It’s not that I deleted these pages, they just have never existed in the first place. On this domain I use W3 Total cache plugin, not sure if it matters, but it has caused a series of problems in other areas.

Thanks,
Ralf

Mh, so I rebuilt the sitemap manually for internetbusinessmastermind.com.
The links to non-existing pages are gone now.

But when i built it the first time they have not been there.

So the question still is:
Why are the sitemaps changing themselves into something that does not reflect the actual site anymore?

Never seen that problem before. Usually these types of things is a conflict with something else. But if you no longer have the problem no sense in looking backwards.

But if you no longer have the problem no sense in looking backwards.

Mh, I wouldn’t say that.

The sitemaps changed by itself and I noticed by accident.

That I fixed them does not mean they won’t change again unless I find out what causes the problem.

I planned to use the sitemaps plugin on many blogs, but I can’t go check all my sites (and my customer’s sites) every few days to check if the sitemap is working properly.

I used it on 2 blogs for a few weeks and have probs on both.

What’s common between them as far as theme and/or plugins? Or aything else?
I have it on over a hundred sites without a problem.

I have had the same problems with this plugin as Ralf. If it auto-generates, it will have links for dates in the future, and even dates that don’t exist, kinda like this:

https://foo.bar/2010/10/29/
https://foo.bar/2010/10/22/
https://foo.bar/2010/10/21/
https://foo.bar/2010/10/38/
https://foo.bar/2010/10/20/
https://foo.bar/2010/10/19/

When I manually generate the sitemap, those weird links go away. I only have four plugins active. “WP Security Scan”, “Login LockDown”, “Secure WordPress”, and “Google XML Sitemaps”. If it was a permissions issue, I’d be getting write errors. I was hoping to not have to make a cron job to run the manual update. Any ideas you can give will be great,

It seems there are 2 separate problems.
1) wrong links being created.
2) Pages disappearing from the sitemap.

#2 just happened again. The sitemap that had 146 links lost all links again except the main page.

What’s common between them as far as theme and/or plugins? Or aything else?

Since both sites display different probs, I’m not sure if they have the same reason. Anyway, comparing both sides now:

Theme and server are different.

These plugins are installed on both sites:
– akismet
– all in one seo
– google sitemap generator
– gravityforms
– wp-database backup
– wp security scan

What stands out is that the wp security scan is also mentioned in the post above.

Might want to first check that the sitemap is good, then disable the wp security scan plugin. Create a new page or post so a new sitemap is generated and see if the problems come back.

How interesting, disabling the scanner plugin did the trick. I wonder what about it causes the XML creator to bug out..

I just had a quick look at the source code of the “wp security scan” plugin and as far as I understood, it sets the $wp_version to ‘abc’ in some cases, which of course is totally stupid if a plugin needs to check the version of WordPress to determine the available features.

I can not say for sure that this is the problem because I didn’t install the plugin yet, but it could be (and also easily cause problems with other plugins).

Might want to first check that the sitemap is good, then disable the wp security scan plugin. Create a new page or post so a new sitemap is generated and see if the problems come back.

Good idea.

I tested a bit back and forth and it actually looks like the stripping down to 1 link only happens when the security plugin is activated.

I have deactivated it now and will check the sitemap for a few days.

Thanks!

I just had a quick look at the source code of the “wp security scan” plugin and as far as I understood, it sets the $wp_version to ‘abc’ in some cases, which of course is totally stupid if a plugin needs to check the version of WordPress to determine the available features.

The reason for removing the version number is that knowing the version of wp makes it easier for hackers to know the vulnerabilities of your specific installation.

Just don’t use old WordPress versions ??

Hiding the version string doesn’t make the blog more secure. If there is a security related bug a hacker will probably just try if it works instead of comparing the version.

And if somebody _really_ wants to know which version you are running there are many other ways to find out.

More info: https://dd32.id.au/2010/07/31/what-version-of-wordpress-is-behind-that-website/

I don’t think this plugin does anything great beside of causing problems with other plugins.

I concur, after many, many rebuilds and countless trial and error changes and searches for the problem of numbered pages I could not identify, including digging the MySql database. I finally land on this post.

Yes the culprit of the mysterious pages is in fact the “WP Security Scan” all 8 of them disappeared on rebuild and then a few hours later they were back grrr.. ?? and growing in number.
Deleted plugin = problem solved.
Thanks for posting