All Download Links Get 404 Errors After Updates today

No, I was asking if you have a development/staging version of your site (a second instance of your site) that can be used for safely testing?

I have only been able to replicate this issue in one instance, and that was only when running on a server using nginx, not apache.

I backed everything up and updated the plug in, so far everything seems to be working fine, I will report back in the morning and let you know if everything is still working or not.

Thanks,

Great!

My site started to do it again.

IT’s not possible for EDD to just start doing something like this. Something has to have changed.

Any plugin updates? Server updates? Theme updates?

The only change was me upgrading EDD plug in again, Remember I had reverted back to the previous version.

Yes but yesterday you said you upgraded and it worked perfectly fine, so what happened between now and then?

Nothing at all no updates, what should the .htaccess look like, is this right? I remember it was something different before.

Options -Indexes
deny from all
<FilesMatch '\.(jpg|png|gif)$'>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
</FilesMatch>

Ok I just go it working again, this is what I did, I edited the .htaccess like this.

Original before the edit was made

Options -Indexes
deny from all
<FilesMatch '\.(jpg|png|gif)$'>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
</FilesMatch>

This is what I changed it to and now it’s working again

Options -Indexes

Ok something really strange is happening here, when I change the .htaccess to this

Options -Indexes

And then upload a new file the .htaccess file changes back to this

Options -Indexes
deny from all
<FilesMatch '\.(jpg|png|gif)$'>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
</FilesMatch>

And then the download links give a 404 error again.

That’s because EDD does that intentionally to ensure the file does not get accidentally deleted. To fix it, do this instead:

function pw_edd_htaccess_rules( $rules ) {
	return 'Options -Indexes';
}
add_filter( 'edd_protected_directory_htaccess_rules', 'pw_edd_htaccess_rules' );

Place that in your theme’s functions.php or a custom plugin.

Will this work?

<?php

// Exit if accessed directly
if ( !defined('ABSPATH')) exit;

/**
 *
 * WARNING: Please do not edit this file in any way
 *
 * load the theme function files
 */
require ( get_template_directory() . '/includes/functions.php' );
require ( get_template_directory() . '/includes/theme-options.php' );
require ( get_template_directory() . '/includes/post-custom-meta.php' );
require ( get_template_directory() . '/includes/tha-theme-hooks.php' );
require ( get_template_directory() . '/includes/hooks.php' );
require ( get_template_directory() . '/includes/version.php' );

function pw_edd_htaccess_rules( $rules ) {
	return 'Options -Indexes';
}
add_filter( 'edd_protected_directory_htaccess_rules', 'pw_edd_htaccess_rules' );

Yep!

My site sent me to a 404 forbidden .htaccess warning after putting the code in the file, so I had to remove it. please can you point me in the right direction to find a good tutorial to make a custom plugin. or how much to have you do it for me?

is this included in the change log of the new update?