ericwm

deleted everything and started with a fresh wordpress install and fresh backup. Everything working OK.

Thank you for your response. My live installation is running ok. I downloaded the public_html folder and the database and installed them on a local server with a fresh copy of word press.

Site health shows 1 Recommendation which is not under Critical Errors as follows

The REST API is one way that WordPress and other applications communicate with the server. For example, the block editor screen relies on the REST API to display and save your posts and pages.

When testing the REST API, an unexpected result was returned:

REST API Endpoint: https://192.168.0.104/simonstown.org/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post?context=edit
REST API Response: (404) Not Found

Under File Permissions only one Directory “FONTS” is shown as unwritable but ownership is www-data:www-data and permissions are for test purposes 777 so don’t know why getting this error.

.htaccess file has ownership root:www-data and permissions 777 have tried root:root and www-data:www-data and still get unable to write to .htaccess file when saving permalinks. So I deleted this file and created a new one and inserted what the permalink save said it should be but still get 404 errors

I did try resaving the permalinks but get error .htaccess file is unwriteable but it is . even tried settting permissions to 777. Apache2 config var/www/html has AllowOverides set to all.

If I try choosing the first option PLAIN it says that the ,htaccess file has been updated but it is not. I then went back to POSTSCRIPT and get the unwriteable error again. Tried editing the .htaccess file and inserting the suggested contents but still get pages not found

Further to the above if I do a site health check I get-

The REST API is one way that WordPress and other applications communicate with the server. For example, the block editor screen relies on the REST API to display and save your posts and pages.

When testing the REST API, an unexpected result was returned:

REST API Endpoint: https://192.168.0.104/simonstown.org/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post?context=edit
REST API Response: (404) Not Found

Ok. I was building my website in a subfolder under public.html. Deleting my old website and replacing it with the one in the subfolder seems to have solved the problem.
Thanks for your assistance

Thank You for the quick response.
I have edited the shortcode on the page where the button is placed so that there is only one shortcode statement. This link works ok.
This url (on the page) is not the same as the one in the MaxButton Editor page which I was trying to update to reflect what is actually on the page.
It seems as though any external url which is added to a button in the editor is triggering this problem. My hosting provider has again advised that there is nothing in cPanel or on the server that is blocking updates. It seems to be internal to WordPress even when the Wordfence plugin is disabled. Very confusing.

Update.
The problem seems to be related to the url that I am trying to link to the button

https://earth.app.goo.gl/?link=https://earth.google.com/earth/d/175AYiJJKPFnPzvYhuJ_yVN40bcnMS14B?usp=sharing

If I actually type in the link like this on the page where the button is placed and update it is accepted

[maxbutton id=”2″ [maxbutton id=”2″ url=”https://earth.app.goo.gl/?link=https://earth.google.com/earth/d/175AYiJJKPFnPzvYhuJ_yVN40bcnMS14B?usp=sharing”%5D

Don’t get this error on my local version of the site.