This has happened to me as well, with all pages except the home page at http://www.alexanderandassociates.com. All the content is there and editable from the control panel, but nothing displays online. It appears this was a problem about a year ago as well with some sites and it is a problem with WordPress.org, not the sites.
WordPress.org is in no way connected to the site….how could it be at fault?
As for the OPs question, is the url malformed at all? Like when you hover over the title, does the address it’s trying to go to appear normal?
Thanks, Rev. I don’t know how it could a problem with WordPress, but that’s what people discussing the problem were saying on the issue at http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/all-my-pages-get-404-error. Wait a sec, they are talking about wordpress.com there. Duh.
In my case, the links look perfectly fine and match what I see in the control panel pages view.
Wait a sec, they are talking about wordpress.com there.
lol, oops! Anyway….usually the first issue I check when I get a 404 for posts is my p[ermalinks.
Justa check to see if they are malformed. If not then permalinks are not the issue.
Next up, theme (because it’s easier!), switch to twentyten and test
And finally, plugins. Any plugin can cause issues, but frequently and popular, related posts, or redirect plugin is suspect. So test again with ALL plugins deactivated
Those 3 checks will catch 99% of all problems
Hey, thanks! I will do that.
Forgive my ignorance, but what are Permalinks, etc.? DO you mean the displayed page links in the dashboard Pages view?
Thanks so much for all your help!
OK. I did all that – switched to Twenty Ten and deactivated all plugins – and still no go.
FWIW, on some of the pages, I had dozens of links to embed YouTube videos, Facebook page feeds and Twitter feeds. COuld that have messed something up? The only page that displays in a browser is the home page.
To see if this would be a problem with new pages, I created the Testy Test Page. Again, it shows up on the header menu in the Home page (the only page that displays), but when I click on the link to Testy Test, I get the 404 thingy.
by permalinks I meant when you hover over the tab for a page, and look down at the bottom of your browser, you can see where the link should take you.
I looked at yours, they appear fine….. nothing malformed.
The next thing I would try in your case is to go to settings->permalinks and set the permalinks to default
Test your site, and then set permalinks back to whatever custom structure you had set up
IT WORKS! I am convinced there is a God, and He sent you to me.
What is the benefit in going back to the custom permalink structure? I think it looks nice for the permalink to have the page title instead of a random number, but does it invite problems to customize?
Again, thanks. My pulse and blood pressure are now normal. Do you just come here and pluck drowning people out of the water in your off time?
well, pretty permalinks are better for search engines. and for your users’ memories
Sometimes, a new post, a new plugin, a new theme, whatever…. your permalinks can just get out of whack. You’ll get those 404 errors for no real apparent reason. When that happens (its pretty rare) resetting permalinks as we’ve just done can often help.
It’s up to you to turn them back on or not, I’m just glad we worked through it!
–I learn by helping people basically…. so the more I help on here, the more I learn!!
Good to know. I will go back and set up my custom permalinks as they do look nice and, as you said, help search engines. If the site ever wigs out like this again now I know what to do.
I checked out your site – very beautiful design and it looks like you did it yourself. The music is cool too.
Thanks very much for the compliment! I did do it myself…all custom code & art
(which incidentally, any advanced features on the site, I learned from peoples questions on here, I rewrite parts of my theme quite frequently)
