categories in primary menu all go to "Oops! That page can’t be found." page

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Hi,

    I need help with my blog at http://www.writingjournal.net

    When I click on the categories listed in my primary menu at the top of the page, it takes me to a page that reads “Oops! That page can’t be found.”

    Ive tried deactivating and uninstalling all plugins. I’ve cleared my cache. I’ve tried clicking ‘save changes’ in permalinks many times. I’ve tried changing the theme, then saving the permalinks again, but it doesn’t work.

    I have the permalinks set to ‘post name.’

    Please help me!

  • Unknown's avatar
    maksimurasov · Member ·

    Hi @gravatarolly,

    I see your website is hosted on Dreamhost, but as long as you use (retired) Button theme by Automattic, we will try to help.

    I see a strange dot in all menu urls: href=”https://www.writingjournal.net/./fiction/”
    href=”https://www.writingjournal.net/./screenwriting/”

    Could you please give some links to the original pages, or their permalinks to test? Because these do not find anything either:
    https://www.writingjournal.net/fiction/
    https://www.writingjournal.net/screenwriting/

    Waiting for your feedback!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Thanks so much for your help!

    I’m not sure how to access ‘menu URLs’. When I click the category in the primary menu for fiction it takes me to “https://www.writingjournal.net/fiction/” – and I see the “Oops! That page can’t be found.”

    I’m not sure how to provide links to the original pages.

    I established the categories by clicking on ‘posts’ then ‘categories’ then ‘add new category’.

    Then I went to ‘appearance’, ‘customize’, ‘menu’, ‘primary’ and ‘add item’ – and then I added the categories.

    Now when I click them it takes me to the ‘oops’ page.

    How would I get the links to the ‘original pages’?

    Also, I don’t see the dot in the link anywhere.

    Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    maksimurasov · Member ·

    @gravatarolly,

    you are right, urls have strange dot in html but seems browser eliminates them, so that is not a problem.

    Thank you for describing the process, now it is clear that the links you create are the links to categories, not the posts or pages.

    Did these links work in the past and broke just now?

    I have tried to recreate that behavior on Button theme and it works fine for me.
    But I see one important difference:
    Your links to categories look like this:
    http://www.writingjournal.net/fiction/
    http://www.writingjournal.net/screenwriting/

    while mine have “category/” in the url:
    test.com/category/one/
    test.com/category/two/

    Strange that this way it also does not work for you, it redirects to some images:
    http://www.writingjournal.net/category/fiction/
    http://www.writingjournal.net/category/screenwriting/

    Seems that something broke your links…

    Have you tried to create a new category in My Sites->Posts->Categories and add it to menu? It also does not work?

    P.S. url of posts and pages can be found this way: My Sites->Posts->hover on three dots of any post -> copy link.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Hi,

    Thank you again.

    This problem has always been present on my site. I remember several months ago I deleted the categories in the primary menu because of this problem – but now I want to use the categories.

    I just (five minutes ago) created a new category called writing – and you can see the same problem applies.

    I’m not sure where ‘My Sites’ is. Is that the ‘dashboard’? because I can see the
    ‘Posts’ section in the dashboard.

    So strange that adding ‘categories’ to the link takes you to the pictures – it also does for me.

    Do you have any other advice for me? I’m trying to fix this as soon as possible.

    Thank you again!

  • Unknown's avatar
    maksimurasov · Member ·

    Hi again,

    I’m not sure where ‘My Sites’ is. Is that the ‘dashboard’?

    Yes :)

    You say installing another theme also did not help? That is really strange…

    There is one workaround, (but it wont solve the initial problem):
    1) create a new page for every category and add a Latest Posts block, configure it to show the necessary category as described here.
    2) add those newly created pages to menu, but not as categories, as pages.

    Maybe that helps?

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Yep – a new theme didn’t help!

    A video online suggested changing the permalinks to another setting like ‘plain’ and then changing back to ‘post name’. The video said this would definitely fix it. I’m worried that if I do that I will lose any search engine rankings I’ve developed so far. Do you think this is a good idea?

    Would I instantly lose and rankings, or would they be maintained if I changed back quickly?

    Thanks for your work around solution!

    I wonder if I should just start a new wordpress site at this stage?

    Have you ever heard of this problem before? It’s so strange!

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    maksimurasov · Member ·

    well, I think if you change Permalink settings from Post name to f.e. Plain and then back – none of the rankings shall be affected, but I am not sure. The speed of changing back and forth is not so important, google robots take days and weeks to crawl again.

    The other thing is that Permalink change will affect pages and posts, but they do not need any fixing at all, they work normally as I see here: http://www.writingjournal.net/top-ten-creative-writing-prompts-based-on-successful-genres/

    For using my solution above a new website is not necessary, you just have to create additional pages in existing website. These additional pages shall contain links to categorized posts, this way we will avoid broken links to categories.

    Feel free to ask if any!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Hi,

    I have an update!

    When I change the permalinks to a different setting like ‘plain’ then the category links work!

    But when I change it back to ‘post name’ they stop working again.

    Does that give you any ideas about what might be causing the problem?

    I deleted those two pictures the links were taking us to earlier but it had no impact!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Additionally, when I go to ‘site health’ I see this message:

    “We have detected multiple tracking codes! You should remove non-MonsterInsights ones. If you need help finding them please read this article.”

    I have monsterinsights and google site kit installed, so many that is responsible for this message?

    Should I try to remove some of the tracking codes?

    Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    when I change the permalinks to plain and click on the link it takes me to:

    https://www.writingjournal.net/?cat=6

    And it works!

    I don’t want to lose the months of rankings with the search engines by changing my setting though!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gravatarolly · Member ·

    Fixed it!

    For anyone else reading this, the answer was to go to ‘settings’ then ‘permalinks’ then ‘optional’ and write the word ‘category’ into the section called ‘category base’

    Enjoy!

    Thanks for the help!

  • Unknown's avatar
    maksimurasov · Member ·

    Hooray!
    Im happy the problem is solved!

    And I could reproduce the bug:
    If the “Category base” is empty – by default “category” is being used (test.com/category/one/);
    If the “Category base” is filled like ABC- “abc” is being used (test.com/abc/one/);
    If the “Category base” is filled with a dot “.” – “page not found” error (test.com/one/).

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