Redirects, wrong https, strange URLs, baffling problems galore

  • Help.
    I am facing a set of very weird problems.
    So everything was going well on my site 24coaches.com until I tried to enforce https on the site. Here is the problem.
    My host is Bluehost.
    I had purchased an SSL certificate through them last year.
    My site was routed through CloudFlare. They have some SSL setup too, which I didn’t know.
    Looking at some websites on the internet, I changed my URLs on Settings>General to https://24coaches.com. Then installed some script on htaccess. BOOM!!
    Whenever I try to access the homepage, instead of 24coaches.com, I get

    https://24coaches.com/https:/24coaches.com/

    The URL replicates itself in https while I do not have https activated anywhere. Everything now is exactly as it was before I embarked on this adventure. I’ve tried everything. Went to PHPmyAdmin and changed the site addresses manually, then through “define” declarations in wp-config, cleared all cookies and caches, deleted CloudFlare, even installed a Database backup and the .htaccess backup exactly as it was before, but still, the homepage stubbornly shows the same weird URL. Browsers show “24coaches.com redirected you too many times.” I’ve tried everything I could find on the internet explaining about such a scenario.

    Funnily enough, it is only the homepage that is affected. Any posts, categories, etc are loading as normal. https://24coaches.com/electric-locomotive-roster-the-wap-series/

    I contacted Bluehost, but they were completely clueless and asked me to verify the SSL certificate or something. God those guys are pathetic, seriously “have you tried turning it on and off again” level customer support for such a huge supposedly technology company.

    And I can access the wp-login.php page, but it keeps telling me my password is wrong, and when I try to reset the password, I am being told that my request is invalid. I am completely stuck here. Can anyone help? Please?? I will be eternally grateful! ??

    Thanks
    ~vadakkus

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

  • Wow! Nice work! ??

    Ok, so steps I would take are :

    ? Check your .htaccess file to make sure that there are no rogue entries in there causing a redirect

    ? in phpMyAdmin open the wp-options table and make sure that your URL’s are set to https://24coaches.com

    ? finally, backup your database, then use this tool to run a search/replace on your db searching for this :

    https://24coaches.com/https:/24coaches.com/

    and replacing it with this :

    https://24coaches.com/

    search replace tool URL : https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/

    Hope that helps!

    Thread Starter vadakkus

    (@vadakkus)

    Hello

    @ivhero Thank you tons for that reply! So here is the lowdown.

    (The issue still persists, clings on stubbornly despite all that I’ve done.

    .htaccess: This was my prime suspect too, but even after careful scrutiny, found nothing wrong in it. To be doubly sure, I deleted everything in it, replaced it with just the standard redirect, then nothing, then deleted it entirely. Still the same.

    I then changed the URLs to https and the entire site went down, so I changed it back, there and in the wp-config file.

    I ran a replace on the DB using the tool you provided (great piece of work!), there were quite a few replacements but the problem still did not go away!

    So, what if the problem really was with the SSL? So I deleted the SSL certificate from cPanel. Voila! I got access to the admin area and the URL of the homepage is now

    https://24coaches.com/https:/24coaches.com/ (The first one is http)

    So, now what? So there might be some problem lying hidden in some PHP file somewhere? So I replaced all the files in the WP install other than wp-config, wp-admin and wp-content over FTP with fresh versions from WordPress 4.7.2.

    No change!

    Also, activated/deactivated plugins multiple times, cleared caches/cookies innumerable times but no avail. Which is when I noticed another very strange occurrence! The homepage works perfectly well when viewed from mobiles/tablets!!!

    Could it be a caching issue? I tried opening the website from several desktops, laptops, but it does not open! But does on mobile devices on the same WLAN!!

    So, the issue:
    Home page opens to https://24coaches.com/https:/24coaches.com/
    All pages on the site other than the homepage open correctly.
    But on mobile devices all pages work correctly.

    I’ve done everything conceivable.

    Anyone?

    Thanks, ~vadakkus

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