Title: Author Link Doesn't Work
Last modified: August 21, 2016

---

# Author Link Doesn't Work

 *  Resolved [Paul Buijs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/paulbuijs/)
 * (@paulbuijs)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/)
 * Hi,
 * I have a contributor page set up with a bunch of bio boxes. Everyones’ WordPress/
   Author links work (WordPress symbol or clicking on name) except for mine.
 * page: [http://mudandadventure.com/contributors/](http://mudandadventure.com/contributors/)
   
   broken contributor: Paul Buijs link: [http://mudandadventure.com/author/Paul%20Buijs/](http://mudandadventure.com/author/Paul%20Buijs/)
   associated user name: Paul Buijs
 * What should I check to try and fix this? Any ideas?
 * As always, thanks for your help!!
 * [http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-biographia/](http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-biographia/)

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Plugin Author [vicchi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vicchi/)
 * (@vicchi)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983447)
 * Hi Paul,
 * How are you creating the Biography Boxes on the contributors page? With a shortcode
   or a template tag? Also, what is your _Display Name Publicly As_ set to in your
   profile and, if you’re using the shortcode/template tag arguments, how have you
   specified your name to be formatted for the Biography Box?
 * -Gary
 *  Thread Starter [Paul Buijs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/paulbuijs/)
 * (@paulbuijs)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983476)
 * Hi Gary,
 * I am using the short code [wp_biographia user=”Paul Buijs”] to the list profile
   box on that page.
 * Display Name Publicly As is set to **Paul Buijs** (same as nickname field). I
   only used the shortcode described above. No tag arguments.
 * I even created a new admin user deleted my old profile and tried it with the 
   new profile.
 * [http://mudandadventure.com/author/Paul%20Buijs/](http://mudandadventure.com/author/Paul%20Buijs/)
   still does not work.
 *  Plugin Author [vicchi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vicchi/)
 * (@vicchi)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983480)
 * I think the problem may be either that you’re using your _Display Name_ for the
   shortcode’s `user` attribute, rather than your login name (see the shortcode’s
   documentation at [http://www.vicchi.org/codeage/wp-biographia/4-shortcode-usage-and-support/](http://www.vicchi.org/codeage/wp-biographia/4-shortcode-usage-and-support/))
   or that your login name has spaces in it, which sometimes throws a theme’s permalink
   redirects into confusion.
 * If your login name is different from your display name, trying using that in 
   the shortcode, along the lines of `[wp_biographia user="login-name"]`.
 * -Gary
 *  Thread Starter [Paul Buijs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/paulbuijs/)
 * (@paulbuijs)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983482)
 * Hi Gary, thanks for the quick response. login name and display name are both **
   Paul Buijs **. This thing has me stumped. Several of the other bio boxes on that
   page have spaces in the name but their author page links work fine.
 * I figured if there was some database corruption that would have been solved by
   me creating a new user and attributing my old user’s posts to the new user. I
   also checked my redirection plugin to see if I may have redirected my author 
   link at some point but no.
 *  Plugin Author [vicchi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vicchi/)
 * (@vicchi)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983488)
 * So this is very odd.
 * I’ve done some research and while WordPress _does_ support login names with spaces
   in them, general consensus on the forums is that this isn’t a good idea. Although
   the WordPress core does the right thing, there’s no guarantee that themes or 
   plugins don’t make assumption about login names.
 * But having said that, I’ve done some testing and can’t seem to replicate this.
   What I’ve done is, in addition to my account which is `gary`, I’ve created two
   accounts, both with spaces and with differences in case, so there’s `Upper Case`
   and `lower case` (not the most imaginative of names I know).
 * On a locally hosted WordPress install (`localhost:8888`) I’ve created test posts
   for both these new accounts, disabled all plugins (except WP Biographia) and 
   used a stock WordPress theme (TwentyTen in this case).
 * I’ve also created a _Contributors_ page, with the following shortcodes …
 *     ```
       [wp_biographia user="gary"]
   
       [wp_biographia user="Upper Case"]
   
       [wp_biographia user="lower case"]
       ```
   
 * For each post, the theme uses the WordPress [`get_author_posts_url`](http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_author_posts_url)
   API call. This API call builds a URL to the author’s archive page in the form
   of `[host[:port]][prefix][/author][/user]`. So for my `gary` account, the URL
   is `http://localhost:8888/author/gary/`. But the API call also detects login 
   names with spaces in them and replaces the spaces with the `-` character and 
   lower cases the remainder of the login name, so for the `Upper Case` user the
   URL is `http://localhost:8888/author/upper-case/` and for the `lower case` user
   the URL is `http://localhost:8888/author/lower-case/`.
 * This all works as it should and the author archives for all the users, when accessed
   via the theme’s links, display correctly. As does my mocked up _Contributors_
   page.
 * WP Biographia uses the same API call and thus, this also works.
 * So there’s something on your site, either in your WordPress setup, in your theme
   or in a plugin which isn’t working correctly. Interestingly enough, although `
   http://mudandadventure.com/author/Paul%20Buijs/` generates a 404 error, if I 
   manually fix up the URL to what WordPress should support, as in `http://mudandadventure.
   com/author/paul-buijs/`, this also 404s, which isn’t what I’d expect.
 * From this, I don’t think there’s an issue with WP Biographia’s handling of login
   names with spaces in them. At least, I’ve been unable to replicate this using
   the current released version of the plugin. So I think the answer may lie elsewhere.
 * What I’d suggest is that you firstly revert to a stock WordPress theme, any of
   the Twenty series should be fine and disable all plugins. Check the author archive
   links that this theme generates. Do they look as they should (all lower case 
   and `-` separated) as I’ve described above?
 * If this works, then re-enable WP Biographia and re-test. What happens?
 * If this works, re-enable each plugin you have and re-test after you’ve enabled
   each plugin. What happens?
 * Finally, revert to your custom theme and again, re-test.
 * I appreciate that this is a laborious process, but it’s the best (and probably
   only) way to narrow down the source of the problem.
 * -Gary
 *  Plugin Author [vicchi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vicchi/)
 * (@vicchi)
 * [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983542)
 * Haven’t heard back from you in over 2 weeks so I’m assuming this is sorted on
   your side and I’m flagging this as _resolved_; feel free to re-open and re-post
   if this isn’t the case.
 * -Gary
 *  Thread Starter [Paul Buijs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/paulbuijs/)
 * (@paulbuijs)
 * [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983544)
 * Hi Gary,
 * Sorry about that. Yeah I changed my username so it didn’t have a space and that
   fixed it. Strange because almost all my other uses have spaces in their user 
   names but it only affected me. Maybe because I am the admin. Who knows. Resolved.
 * Thanks as always for your support and quick response!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘Author Link Doesn't Work’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/wp-biographia_f0f0f0.svg)
 * [WP Biographia](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-biographia/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-biographia/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-biographia/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-biographia/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-biographia/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-biographia/reviews/)

 * 7 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Paul Buijs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/paulbuijs/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/author-link-doesnt-work/#post-3983544)
 * Status: resolved