WP Help - Permalinks and 404 errors

[CK]

So I moved a site over to wordpress and have a problem with the permalinks. The custom permalink is set to

/%category%/%postname%/

Most of the pages / posts work fine, however I have two categories that don't work. The pages are there but when you click on the urls I have a 404 error

A few things to note

• I don't get a 404 error on the page/post when using the standard permalink structure
• The 404 error doesn't display my normal 404 page, but instead serves the hosts 404 page
• A correct 404 displays my custom 404 page
• I've double checked my htaccess file and all is correct (prior to the host editing it lastnight)
  

So I emailed the host lastnight and told them this has to be on their end as a proper 404 shows my landing page, and these show the server 404 page. Their reply was this

Upon review of your account, the issue appears to be due to an issue with your 404 error configuration. As a courtesy, we have added the correct scripting to your .htaccess file to resolve the issue. Because WordPress does not store these pages in the root directory of your hosting account, your 404 behavior must be configured so that inquiries to pages that do not exist in the root or in folders in the root are redirect through your index.php file after which WordPress will redirect them to the correct page and pages that really do not exist receive the 404 error message from your template. You can review the information below for additional information on the script that was added to your .htaccess file to resolve the issue.

This morning I check the server headers of the pages that appear to be fixed and I get a 404 error on all of them. I can access the pages, but it's not the proper status code.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this so that I receive a proper status code of 200 instead of 404?

Here is the htaccess they created

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

ErrorDocument 404 /index.php



- Thank you

[Peter Willis]

Try adding this to the top of your htaccess file. Also, I would personally ignore the host and delete the 404 /index.php line.

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on

[CK]

Thanks Peter - just did that and the pages are showing the hosts 404.


I think I might move this site to another host and see if that's the issue...I've never had this problem before and obv the host hasn't any clue how to fix aside from creating a workaround.

[Peter Willis]

Can you PM or post the URL's you are having trouble with? You don't happen to have a post/page/tag named exactly the same as the problematic categories, do you?

[Frost]

Also make sure you have emptied the trash as wordpress still "sees" those posts/pages.

[CK]

Thanks for the help guys. I got this sorted. Solution - moved it to a new host and it works 100%. Exactly the same as it was on the other, so not sure why it was broken at godaddy.

Thanks again for the help, I appreciate all the suggestions.