Main site loses permalink sometimes and returns 404

  • Hi.
    I have a strange problem with the permalink setup, that I don’t know how to fix. Let me explain.
    Over the last 10 days, the main site has suddenly started acting strange by returning 404 pages when navigating to all pages except the home page. All subsites work fine too. I setup the WP multisite Network in December 2015 and the problem has arisen 4 times now within about the last 10 days only, never before.
    I know how to fix it (temporarily), by going to the Settings->Permalink page. I don’t even have to press save. No changes have been made to the permalink structure on the settings page. I checked that the database has this value store in post options. key: permalink_structure. value: /%postname%/
    My htaccess has not been modified and is the same as it has been since the beginning.
    Are there any other settings or code that can affect the permalinks? Could a plugin somehow flush and reset the permalink structure during the night or something?
    The problem is, I can’t even recreate the problem. It has, so far, only happened when the client entered the site and I really don’t know where to start debugging.
    I hope somebody can help. ??
    Thanks!

Viewing 3 replies - 16 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • Thread Starter Vayu Robins

    (@vayu)

    This is such a frustrating problem, because I can’t create the problem. I have no idea of when it occurs. It just occurs after a day or so. But something must be happening to either a file or the database? The .htaccess file is not changed for sure, so some other “setting” in WordPress must be changing and affect how permalinks work, right?

    Vayu, since you experience the problem on your production server but not on your local server, I wonder if this is not a permalinks issue at all but rather a hosting setup issue. I know you spoke with them once, but I wonder if you could check with them again to verify that httpd.conf file is set up correctly. I am far from an expert on multisite, and this is a shot in the dark, but since you are at a loss to even recreate the problem I thought I would throw this out there as another possible avenue to pursue. I recently had a 404 problem on my multisite, though it was very different from this (all subsites returning 404 when looking at http version, but working when looking at https version) and it turned out my httpd.conf file was set up incorrectly at the host. This would not explain why it happens sometimes and not others, but it’s a place to look. Ask them to actually open it up and visually verify that the settings are correct.

    I am secretly hoping for a resolution to crop up here.

    I have a multisite with 200+ network sites. Occasionally the home page will revert to a blog and we loose some custom pages that are handled by a custom plugin as well as standard pages that are 100% WordPress.

    I didn’t notice a plugin list from you.

    Here is a list of our plugins ( all custom plugins are excluded and most of the dev plugins are not enabled on live. ) https://gist.github.com/adampatterson/6314b84acaacfea12fe1bfc56bb8143e

    If any dots line up for you please let me know.

    Other than making another plugin that creates a CRON that will refresh the permalinks every 15 min. I have no idea how to diagnose this problem.

Viewing 3 replies - 16 through 18 (of 18 total)
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