Have you asked WooThemes? Don’t they provide support for a commercial theme?
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Hi WPyogi, sometimes it’s hard to know what’s a wordpress issue and whats a theme issue. I thought that this one might be a wordpress issue, ie I didn’t know enough about how to do this properly
I’ll see what they say, thanks
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Hi WPYogi. I asked and they suggested that I try it with a different theme, (default theme). So I did and it’s the same with the default theme so I’m assuming it’s a wordpress thing rather than a theme thing.
Thanks
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Anyone? I’m still totally stuck on this, no idea why I’m getting a 404 page or where that author link comes from, or more importantly how I can get my correct link in there.
Thanks
peter1, a couple suggestions:
1. Try refreshing your permalinks – go to Settings -> Permalinks and save. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed to fix problems like this.
2. Does your author have a published post? Or only pages? Try creating a post and see if that fixes it.
3. Did you try disabling all plugins with the TwentyEleven theme to see if it’s a conflict?
4. Do you have an author.php page? If not then you could come up with a workaround potentially by adding that to your theme and changing some links.
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Hi Easysnark, thanks.
Tried the permalinks, no change sadly as that would have been wonderful.
Yes lots of posts, I’m the only author but there’s dozens of posts there.
Yes tried disabling plugins, tried it with the curren theme then with 2011.
I am using http://www.over40cyclist.com/author/Over40Cyclist/ as the link to try out. That’s the link that my current theme gives me as author. I don’t know where in 2011 to look for an author link. I’ve tried it with 2012 too.
Interestingly though that link is showing Over40Cyclist as the author. That isn’t anything to do with either my username or my public display name. So I put Over40Cyclist in as my nickname and display name and I’m still getting a 404 on that page.
I have no idea where the software is getting Over40Cyclist from as my author now, though it’s the name of the site it’s not, or wasn’t, in my profile.
There’s another field in the user record called “nicename” (in the DB), my guess is that Over40Cyclist is stored there (possibly when your host first initialized your WP account?). You could check this if you have phpmyadmin. Even if that is the case I don’t quite know how to fix it (brain is starting to fade) but I do have some additional questions:
1. Do all authors on your site have this problem, or just you?
2. Can you view the archive with http://www.over40cyclist.com/?author=1 (replace ‘1’ with your user ID)
Separately, I just have to comment that your site has a stunning amount of code loaded on each page, looks like 168k on one post I saw (by comparison, a page on my site which I thought was pretty loaded down comes in at 54k). I definitely experienced extended load times. Firefox is also reporting an error in the head and body tags when I view source. None of these are likely affecting your author issue but thought I’d mention it. Maybe it’s just how your theme works, I don’t know, I don’t have any experience with those vendors. Seemed excessive to me though and it’s something that can definitely affect your traffic and SEO.
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Interesting, I don’t know much about the code in the site, I’m no expert in that sort of stuff. The theme is a prestige theme by Woo, I think it’s their biggest seller, and they are quite a well known theme producer as far as I know, quite a few people use their themes. But as for the amount of code I have no idea.
I just tested it in webpagetest.org and got 81/100, 71/100 in pingdom but slower than 84% of websites though not encouraging.
I’m the only author. I assume by user id you mean my username? Tried that and no good.
I’ll take a look at the database but I’m no expert on this sort of stuff so I doubt I’ll be able to figure much out.
Try creating another user, assign it the Author role, log on as that user and create a post. See if you can view the posts using the comparable link for that user. That can narrow it down to whether or not it’s your user, or all authors.
And on http://www.over40cyclist.com/?author=1 no I didn’t mean your username, I meant your user ID. If you’re the only user in your WP system then it’s user ID 1 and you can try that link exactly, if there are already other users then it’s a different ID number.
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
I was searching for how to find the user id and found the suggestion that I hover over some links and look for it. I found one that finished in “author=2” so I tried your link. Your link exactly as it is goes to a 404 but with a “2” there it redirects to the home page.
Don’t know if that helps.
Yes, that’s a start. What about when you create a new author user? Sounds like maybe that would work, based on what you just reported, but it would be good to know for sure. That way you’d be certain it was your user record and then we might be able to figure out what to change in the DB (or something).
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Thanks, I added a new user, as author. Wrote a new draft post and identified that user as author. When I look at the preview I see the author link, it has the authors username as the author name (Ie in the link) and when clicked it redirects to the home page. (Better than a 404 but no author page)
Thread Starter
peter1
(@peter1)
Interesting, after a little bit of playing it seems clear that the link provided for the author uses the nickname I have chosen for him as the name of the author and the username in the author link.
Because if I change the nickname it changes the “About author name) and the “View all posts by (author name) yet in both cases the name in the link is the same, that doesn’t change.
I also notice that it shows that i am “Logged in as the Over40Cyclist” and that’s the author link, but it isn’t my username and it isn’t my name and it isn’t my display name. It’s obviously the site but where it comes from I have no idea.
So it’s definitely the user record, and again I’m suspecting that ‘nicename’ field that’s in the DB.
Here’s a next step – I don’t know how your theme works so this might not fly, but do you have an author.php page in your theme folder?
If not, then find the one that’s in your twentyeleven theme directory and copy it into your active theme directory (need to do this via FTP).
Then, try http://www.over40cyclist.com/?author=2 and see if you get something other than the home page.
