WordPress is a great application but sometimes a tweak or tiny change can cause the entire site to become inaccessible. The 404 error is one of the common WordPress errors and most WordPress users may experience it at some point. Finding a solution for this can be challenging, but not to worry as we’ve put together a list of solutions for you.
Typically users who encounter this error can still access their /wp-admin pages and their main blog page, but when they open specific posts, they are greeted with a 404 error. Don’t worry, your content is still there. This error typically happens when something happens with your .htaccess file. For example, it may have been deleted or become corrupted. However, this error can also happen when something has gone wrong with Rewrite Rules.
How To Fix WordPress 404 Error
If your .htaccess file has become corrupted or was accidentally deleted, you can easily recreate it by updating your permalinks.
To do this, login to your /wp-admin, and hover over Settings on the left, then click Permalinks.
Once your Permalinks page has opened, click the blue Save Changes button at the bottom.
You aren’t actually making any changes but when you click Save Changes, a new .htaccess file will be generated with the default settings.
These default WordPress .htaccess settings appear below for reference:
# BEGIN WordPress RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] # END WordPress
After saving your changes, return to your website and try to load an individual post.
If it loads without a 404 error, congrats, you’ve solved your problem!
If the steps above didn’t solve your issue, you might need to restore the website files from a backup if you have one available. If you’re a ChemiCloud customer, you can rest easy! All our WordPress hosting plans come with 30 day daily offsite backups allowing them to be quickly restored.