404/403 error when saving menu

  • Hello,

    I’ve taken a look around for any information on this issue as it’s not one I’ve come across before. I developed a site for a colleague and initially it was all working fine but recently whenever they attempt to alter the menu it goes to a 404 page when they attempt to save the changes. I’ve created a test version of the site and disabled all the plugins, re-uploaded a fresh copy of WordPress over the top and attempted to change the theme back to twentyfifteen which hasn’t resolved the issue. I did reset the permalinks back to the default but then I receive a 403 error instead.
    I can’t see anything obvious that I seem to be missing and I’m running into a bit of a dead end as it stands.

    There’s a lot of other wordpress sites running on the same server but I’ve not encountered this issue on any of the other sites before now.

    Any help will be appreciated!

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

  • Hey @baconchaney,

    Do you have a lot of items in the menu or are you using Dreamhost as your hosting provider?

    If you have a lot of items in the menu, please check out this article: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-custom-menu-items-limit-in-wordpress/

    If you’re using Dreamhost, you may be running into resource limits which are triggering the 404 error page.

    Hope that helps!

    Are you by chance using the BuddyPress plugin? I had this problem when using that plugin with the newer versions of WordPress. Also, saving the permalinks again without changing them to the default, will sometimes work. It could be a problem with your .htaccess file which permalinks should rewrite.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    DreamHost would throw you a 500 error or a 418 actually. Or at least it should right now.

    But yeah, too many menu items has a nice way of killing memory on a server ??

    Thread Starter baconchaney

    (@baconchaney)

    Thanks for the replies everyone!

    We don’t use DreamHost, it’s a UK company called uk2 but we’ve much larger sites on the same server without any issues.
    There’s actually only a dozen menu items and the memory usage on the server barely makes a mark. I’ll certainly check out the article and see if there’s any potential fixes.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Sounds like time for standard debugging ??

    WP_DEBUG on, plugins off, see if it works.

    Thread Starter baconchaney

    (@baconchaney)

    Hi all again,

    I’ve just encountered this on another site I’ve developed. Exactly the same circumstances again. Go to save the menu and it returns a 404. The only common theme I can see is that both menu’s contain custom links?

    @baconchaney do any of the custom links contain special characters?

    I have exactly the same problem. When I save the menu, I get the 403 forbidden error. Only have about 7 items in the menu.
    I checked the htaccess file, deactivated all plugins, checked permissions. Everything seems ok. I don’t know what else to do.
    Any help is much appreciated.

    Thread Starter baconchaney

    (@baconchaney)

    @karpstrucking – Not sure if they are deemed as special characters but there is html in the link titles in order for it to display icons but the actual links are just standard urls. Some of them just go to archive pages or custom post types.
    The demo site I’ve been testing with is https://test.harbourlights.uk.com/. I’ve re-enabled all the plugins for now as it’s not made any difference.

    Debug isn’t throwing up anything either which is the frustrating part about it.

    Thanks @sharpixdigital it’s reassuring to know I’m not the only one having the issue.

    Thread Starter baconchaney

    (@baconchaney)

    Sorry to bump but to update on the issue…
    Just in the process of developing a new site for a different customer altogether and the menu has been working find today (I’ve added new menu items this morning). I’ve just gone to add more menu items to it and I’m not getting the 404 error. The site is still under development with a limited number of plugins currently installed and WP_DEBUG isn’t giving any information.
    I’m at a loss at the moment as to what could be causing it?

    I’m running WordPress 4.7.4 on a mature site that’s 3 years old. Since this latest update, I’m having 404 problems with these…

    Click Appearance > Customize = 404 error
    Click Appearance > Widgets = 404 error
    Click Appearance > Menus = 404 error

    When I Click Appearance > Themes or Editor = works normally

    These were all working normally before updating to WP 4.7.4. Has anybody seen this or know of a solution?

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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