Troubleshoot the WordPress Error 404 with 3 Different Methods

by Mitesh Singhal Singhal Industries Private Limited

While using WordPress, it’s obvious to encounter errors because of glitches and server related problems. Seeing error on your WordPress account can be very confusing and frustrating. But, there’s a solution to every error that you are having on your screen. On such error is the WordPress Error 404 that gives hard times to the users to fix it. Let’s understand more about this error and its troubleshooting solution in a brief manner:

What is error 404 in WordPress?

Whenever you visit any website, the web server receives a request from the browser. This request works perfectly if there is no error. Error 404 means that the client is not able to connect to the website’s server. There can be various reasons for the occurrence of this error. This mainly happens because of the problem associated with the WordPress website’s permalinks. By understanding the cause of the error, the 404 error can be resolved completely. Let’s have a look at the solutions to fix these errors:

Reset the WordPress permalinks

There are the main methods following which you can troubleshoot this 404 error. The first solution that you must try is resetting the WordPress permalinks. The way WordPress generates the permalinks is one of the reasons that can be impacting WordPress and causing the error to occur. For this, you need to reset your permalinks.

One way of resetting the permalinks is navigating to the Settings and then clicking on the Permalinks tab. Once you reach there, you can change the permalinks temporarily for resetting the WordPress’ permalink settings.

The another method of resetting is through the dashboard. For this, you just need to access the dashboard and then follow the reset instructions present on the screen.

Deactivate the themes and plugins

Many times, you will see that your themes and plugins are impacting your WordPress URL structure. This depends on the plugins and themes settings. If you tried one or both of the previous methods, but WordPress 404 error persists, you must try disabling your themes and plugins. This is considered the best option when it comes to getting rid of error 404.

Not just this error, you can get rid of any WordPress related problems such as WordPress Parse Error, error 500, and many more with an effective solution. Disabling the plugins can help you quickly fix the error. All you need to do is disable the plugins one by one to find exactly which plugin was causing the error.

Restore the .htaccess file

If you don’t get any solution from all these solutions mentioned above, you must try another option, which is restoring the .htaccess file. If any change is made to the WordPress permalink structure, it will be saved to the .htaccess. That file instructs how WordPress will interact with its server. All that you need to do is to edit the .htaccess manually for resetting the permalinks.

Summery

There are multiple ways to fix the WordPress error 404; however, the method to fix it depends on the reason for this. The objective of this article is to describe readers about three important ways to fix the error.