Title: 404 errors and changing name content folder
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# 404 errors and changing name content folder

 *  Resolved [MarionFW](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marionfw/)
 * (@marionfw)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/404-errors-and-changing-name-content-folder/)
 * Hi,
    I had a crash of my site and reinstalled it. Everything seems to work fine,
   but for one thing: I get loads of 404-errors. They all refer to the folder wngs_content:
   in the old site (that crashed) I earlier changed the standard foldername wp_content
   into this new name.
 * In the new site, I prefer using the standard wp_content. But now I’m getting 
   all these errors.
 * I’m not sure if I should ask my question on this support forum, but as the change
   of the content-folder was originally made through iThemes Security, I hope someone
   may advise me what to do best.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/)

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [dwinden](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dwinden/)
 * (@dwinden)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/404-errors-and-changing-name-content-folder/#post-6191669)
 * At the time you used the iTSec plugin Advanced **Change Content Directory** feature
   the only 2 changes made by the plugin were:
 * The following 3 lines were added to the top of the wp-config.php file:
 *     ```
       //Do not delete these. Doing so WILL break your site.
       define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://www.yourdomain.com/wngs_content/' );
       define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', 'wngs_content' );
       ```
   
 * And the wp-content folder was renamed to the new folder name as specified.
 * Once the feature is used\applied it does not provide you with an option to undo
   it …
 * To undo the iTSec plugin feature you would have to manually undo the above 2 
   changes.
 * However there is a database complication. The content of your site stored in 
   the database will most of the times contain hard coded content paths … (these
   cause your 404 pages).
 * If you just started the website the number of hard coded content paths are probably
   manageable. But if the website is eg 1 year old it will probably contain lots
   of hard coded content paths …
 * This is why the iTSec plugin Advanced **Change Content Directory** feature warns
   you to only use the feature in a NEW (clean) WordPress site …
 * So how do you replace all those old content paths with new ones in the database?(
   Well actually in your case replace all new content paths with the old (default)
   one).
 * 2 possible options (there may be more):
 * – If you used a database backup to restore your site, perform a search (old wp-
   content) and replace (new wp-content) on the database backup file before using
   it to restore the database.
    Note this is only an option for a text based (not
   binary) backup file.
 * – Once the database is already restored, simply use a tool that performs the 
   search and replace on the database.
    A quick search on the internet produced 
   this tool: [https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/](https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/)
   But there may be others out there. Using such tools is at your own risk.
 * So you have 2 options.
 * Easy way out is to add the 3 earlier mentioned lines at the top of the wp-config.
   php file and rename the wp-content folder to wngs_content. This way things are
   as they were in the old site.
 * The other more complicated option is to search and replace either in the backup
   file or directly on the database.
 * dwinden
 *  Thread Starter [MarionFW](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marionfw/)
 * (@marionfw)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/404-errors-and-changing-name-content-folder/#post-6191731)
 * Hi dwinden,
    thanks so much for this explanation. I suppose I’d better go for
   the easy way, and change things back to what they were before, to avoid any risk
   of a broken site by changing the datase.
 * Just to be sure one more question about the third line
    ‘define( ‘WP_CONTENT_DIR’,‘
   wngs_content’ )’
 * Do I understand correctly that just the name of the content folder is enough?
   In the old wp-config.php file, there is a whole path:
    ‘/var/www/vhosts/xx/xxxxx/
   webspace/siteapps/WordPress-xxxxx/htdocs/wngs-content’ (I changed some digits
   into xxx)
 * I’m not sure if this is just because the old site was installed thruough a webapp.
   The new site is a fresh, regular WordPress install.
 *  [dwinden](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dwinden/)
 * (@dwinden)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/404-errors-and-changing-name-content-folder/#post-6191750)
 * My apologies for the error.
    Indeed the third line needs a full path. This has
   nothing to do with how WordPress was installed.
 * If the provided info helps you resolve the issue please mark this topic as ‘resolved’.
 * dwinden
 *  Thread Starter [MarionFW](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marionfw/)
 * (@marionfw)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/404-errors-and-changing-name-content-folder/#post-6191848)
 * I’m not sure why, but the easy way did not work out. As my site is not too large,
   I choose to replace old content paths.
    It seems to work fine now, so topic is
   closed.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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## Tags

 * [404-error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/404-error/)
 * [content folder](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/content-folder/)

 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [MarionFW](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marionfw/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/404-errors-and-changing-name-content-folder/#post-6191848)
 * Status: resolved