Mission Critical: The SEO Framework PayPal API 404

Update: deactivating then immediately reactivating the SEO Framework has fixed the issue. Very odd! Any help to prevent this from happening again?

Hi Joe,

When you deactivate The SEO Framework, it’ll refresh the rewrite rules. This is done to deregister the sitemap.

This refresh/flush by The SEO Framework is according to the WordPress Rewrite API prerequisites. Thus any issues, caused by any plugin, will be resolved; even those not caused by The SEO Framework.

With WordPress Rewrite rules, correlation does not imply causation — the code doesn’t “flow” one way; it’s a haywire mess.

I truly believe another plugin is the culprit; I trust that if you only activate The SEO Framework, the PayPal API will work as intended. Could you verify this? Edit: You verified this already. Thanks!

With rewrite rules, it’s quite impossible–without WordPress programming knowledge–to find the culprit. However, there is a tool available (by Automattic) that might indicate where the culprit lies. I’m going to use this tool as well, to help prevent issues in the future.

I understand this is a big bite to take, but I hope this clears things up!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Sybre Waaijer. Reason: verified

Thank you, Sybre! I was afraid of that…

So, my next step sounds like waiting for the error to happen again, then using “Rewrite Tools Inspector” to hunt down the bug, and fall back on deactivating / reactivating TSF for the refresh/flush capability as a temporary fix?

Hi Joe,

Yes, that would help. I can’t say with certainty, but it seems like the first rule after or before a marked-red (missing) rule would be the one brought by a piece of code that messes up rewrite rules. I still have to get my hands dirty to confirm this.