Random 404 Page Not Found Errors

  • I have a site that has been in production for years, currently running WP v6.1.1.

    Recently (around the last three or four weeks) I’ve been getting reports from users of 404 Page Not Found responses when visiting a page. The site page header shows, but WP just displays the Page Not Found + a search box for the content. I have also experienced this.

    At first I thought it had to do with caching (Litespeed). With caching enabled, once the error occurs on a page, the user always gets the error for that page, though other pages work fine. I have to disable the caching plugin in order to clear the 404 response on a page.

    But I have disabled caching and still get the random 404 errors, though they are less persistent.

    With caching disabled, when I get a 404 on a page load, I can refresh the page and it will return correct content. It seems to be only the first load of the page that gets the 404, and even then it’s random… sometimes it will show a 404 on first load, and other times it will show the content.

    Sometimes I can be on a working page, navigate away from it, then navigate back to it. What was just previously a working page now displays the 404 Page Not Found error. On refresh, the page loads fine.

    I have resaved permalinks multiple times without any apparent difference. I’ve gone through the process of disabling multiple plugins that I thought might have an effect on the page load, but nothing seems to make a difference.

    I can’t reproduce the problem on demand… it’s just a random occurrence.

    I’m really stumped on this one and would appreciate some advice and thoughts on how to track down this problem and fix it.

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  • Moderator t-p

    (@t-p)

    Try re-setting your permalink structure at Admin panel>>>Settings>>>Permalinks. Sometimes, that works if it is a simple db issue. WordPress will create/rebuild the .htaccess file. If WordPress cannot automatically edit the .htaccess file

    If .htaccess file is not writable, then WordPress will provide manual instructions after saving the correct block of code so that you can manually add it to your .htaccess file.

    If that does not resolve the issue, cause could be with your hosting configuration. To fix it, you will need to contact your host.

    Thread Starter Norm Sash

    (@normsash)

    Yes, I’ve reset my permalink structure (and saveed) a couple of times, but that hasn’t resolved the issue. The .htaccess file is writable. Must be something else. I haven’t changed the hosting configuration in quite a while, but I’ll contact them also.

    I’m more inclined to wonder if it has to do with WP 6.1 and some of the performance enhancements that were introduced with that. The timing is about right for when I started getting user problem reports and when I updated to WP 6.1. Plus, just the behavior of the problem just feels like it could be something in WP 6.1, though I certainly don’t have any direct evidence of that.

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