How to Fix 404 Error After Plugin Update?

It is understood that no website will work perfectly all the time. Your WordPress website will show up some common errors and among these is the 404 errors after plugin updates and fixes. It is no use getting all stressed no matter how frustrated you are when these errors are faced. Instead, it is better to become practical and learn how to resolve them.

What is a 404 Error?

This is essentially a ‘not found error when the page that you want to view is unavailable. There may be a message “The page cannot be found. The page you are looking for may have been removed, have its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable”. Sometimes only the homepage may be visible, and all other pages show the 404 error. This error can surface due to several reasons.

The reasons for this error to emerge can be due to some bugs in the structure of permalinks or the permanent URL which links to different pages or posts on your website. Sometimes when you update a post or page an error occurs. Another reason for this error is that some pages may have actually been deleted. Apache is the web server software on which WordPress runs and helps you connect to the web page. The bug may be due to the mod_rewrite extension on Apache being disabled.

How to Fix 404 Errors?

Solution – 1

Automatically reset permalinks by going to Settings >> Permalinks and selecting the Save Changes button after selecting the permalinks you had used earlier or by selecting the ‘plain’ option under common settings. This will reset your permalinks which can solve the issue of the mod_rewrite extension and your web pages will be visible.

Solution – 2

If the above solution does not work, then try this option. Use FTP to log in to the server and locate the .htaccess file. It will be in the WordPress root directory where you can find the main folders such as wp_content and wp_includes are situated. Select the View/Edit option by downloading a copy on your local computer. Make the changes here. Here you need to enter codes manually if you feel confident and are technically inclined to do it. You will get the save and replace message from WordPress and you can accept. This will reset the permalinks and solve the error.

Solution – 3

You may get the 404 error message asking you to check if you have spelled the URL correctly. Go to PHPadmin and locate the wp-option in the database name section. Change the URL by replacing it with http://localhost/blog from the earlier URL which is similar to your website URL name.

Solution – 4

Faulty themes or plugins can be the cause of the 404 error popping up on WordPress. You can go to your WordPress dashboard if it is accessible and select the deactivate option for each and check which plugin is the faulty one. You can reactivate all the plugins after checking if the error has disappeared.

You can go to the Themes tab and change the theme to basic and check if the error has gone. If you need to do the deactivation manually due to the dashboard being inaccessible, log in through the FTP client and navigate to the public_html/wp_content folder where you can locate the themes and plugins section. Rename the plugin folder by right-clicking it and this will disable the plugin. Then check to see which is the suspect plugin that is causing the error. If the plugins are all clean manually deactivate the themes to check for the error. Rename the folders once the checks are done back to the earlier name if it works fine.