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How to Fix WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error (Step by Step)

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Are your WordPress posts returning a 404 error on your website?

This error happens when you can access your WordPress admin area and blog, but when you try to open a post, you will see “404 Not Found.”

In this article, we will show you how to fix WordPress posts returning 404 errors.

How to fix WordPress posts returning 404 error

What Causes the WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error?

WordPress is a powerful content management system (CMS), but a slight change can sometimes make your WordPress website inaccessible.

In some cases, you may not be able to access your WordPress admin area or the website itself, like with the internal server error or error establishing a database connection.

By contrast, when your WordPress posts are returning 404 errors, you will still be able to get into your admin area and see your WordPress website on the front end. Then, when you click on a blog post, you will see a message saying “404 Not Found”.

Although this error message can be scary, it doesn’t mean you have lost your WordPress posts. Instead, your .htaccess file has probably been deleted, or something went wrong with the rewrite rules on your blog.

That being said, let’s look at how to fix WordPress posts returning 404 errors. You can use the links below to jump straight to different solutions:

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WordPress posts can return 404 errors because of problems with rewrite rules in your .htaccess file. In most cases, you can fix the problem by updating your permalink settings.

Simply go to Settings » Permalinks in your WordPress admin, and click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Check Permalinks

There is no need to make changes to the permalink settings themselves. This will update your permalink settings and flush the rewrite rules.

In most cases, this solution fixes the WordPress posts 404 error. However, if it does not work for you, then you probably need to update your .htaccess file manually.

Method 2: Update the WordPress .htaccess File

Before you start, make sure to back up your WordPress .htaccess file first. If something goes wrong, you can easily restore the original file.

Now, you will need to connect to your server using an FTP client like FileZilla or the File Manager app in your WordPress hosting dashboard.

Next, you will need to find and edit the .htaccess file, which is located in the same location as folders like /wp-content/ and /wp-includes/.

Simply right-click on the file and select ‘File permissions.’

.htaccess file permissions

You can make the file writeable by changing its permissions to 666.

Simply enter ‘666’ into the ‘Numeric value’ box and then click on ‘OK’.

Change file attributes for the .htaccess file to 666

Then, you need to repeat the steps in the first method of our tutorial. Once you have done this, don’t forget to change the permissions back to 660.

You can also edit the file and add code to it.

Edit .htaccess file

Once you have opened the .htaccess file with a text editor, simply insert this code:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Method 3: Contact Your Hosting Provider

If neither of the solutions above has fixed the WordPress posts returning 404 error, then we recommend contacting your WordPress hosting provider. There may be an error on their end, or they might be able to help you troubleshoot the problem.

Please also see our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it.

Method 4: Fix WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error on Local Servers

If you are using a local server for testing purposes, then you will need to enable mod_rewrite in the Apache configuration of your MAMP, WAMP, or XAMPP site.

This will allow WordPress to generate clean URLs and prevent the 404 error for posts and pages on your local server.

How you do this will differ by the platform you use. People using XAMPP can open their control panel and click the ‘Config’ button within Actions. Then, select ‘Apache (httpd.conf).’

The Apache (httpd.conf) menu on XAMPP

Next, you will need to find this line #LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so and remove the ‘#’ to uncomment it.

This will load the mod_rewrite.

Finding the rewrite_module on httpd.conf file

Then, find all instances of AllowOverride None and change them to AllowOverride All.

The ‘All’ value means that all directives can be overridden.

Changing AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All

Once done, you can save the httpd.conf file and close it. After that, in the XAMPP control panel, click ‘Stop’ on the Apache module and ‘Start’ again to restart it.

Then, go back to your admin dashboard to see if your permalinks are working.

We hope this article helped you resolve the posts returning 404 errors in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide to the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them, along with our expert picks for the best WordPress plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

768 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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  2. Julius says

    Mine is a little different. All the pages are working fine but I get “page not found” when working in some places in the dashboard. Let’s say for example I’m creating a new page from the dashboard. When I click on publish I get a 404 error.
    And I’ve tried everything above but it’s not working.

  3. Iron65 says

    Thanks for the tip!! the permalink really saved me!!! In case if any other suffered this by updating Yoast SEO or by just deleting cache, try that one, it will fix it

  4. Monica says

    I have been trying to fix this permalink issue in my site for months and now I did it with your instructions. I don’t know why I did everything you said already and after writing the 644 permissions to fix the httaccess file, it went back to non-writeable. Now I did it and fixed the permissions and wrote your code and it worked. i really don’t know which was the difference but this time it did. Maybe that I already fixed the httaccess in the original folder where I have a subfolder with my blog. That is the only thing I did differently. Thanks a lot

  5. Rais Dar says

    I am getting a 404(page not found) on my site. What should i do as i tried your methods but still error persists

  6. Chetan says

    I had faced the same kind of problem. I used to get 404 Page Not Found error for a page. But the reason was that I and used a permalink slug that was associated with some default page in WordPress. e.g. http://example.com/posts – This is WRONG. Because I cannot use ‘posts’ as permalink slug. It is already reserved for some WordPress page. When I changed it to ‘my-posts’, so that now my permalink read: http://example.com/my-posts, the error was gone!

  7. dumb says

    hay guys ….
    when i change the permalink to anything other than default, my pages wont work i get this error message
    “The requested URL /wordpress/home/ was not found on this server.

    Apache/2.4.9 (Win64) PHP/5.5.12 Server at localhost Port 80”

    pl help me out

  8. Ian Scofield says

    I just had this with one of my websites. All of my posts worked fine except for one though. Something was bad about the URL. I had to change the post URL.

  9. neelesh says

    thanks a lot… ur website has helped me a lot of times and u guys are doing great job. i cant resist myself from thanking you…..

  10. Hardik says

    Hi Wpbeginner,
    Actually I just have migrated from hostinger to one of paid hosting. After migration all things are going good. But when I have tried to edit one my post it regularly shows the following error.
    “Page not found error” ‘Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found. Perhaps searching will help.
    When I have landed here I have tried all the solutions which you have share.
    But nothing is working for me.
    Please Help.
    Thanks in advance
    Hardik

  11. Adrienne says

    Question? I have an url site, but the data is all new. so there are about 100 old posts that are not longer valid but linked to other sites.. How do I change it to forward to main website, so that Google Search Console can update they crawl records.

    I’m looking, but I don’t see anything for posts that have been deleted and getting a 404 error.

    Thanks,

  12. Xavier says

    Woohoo! Thanks for this. I thought my site content had gone to the birds. Doing the permalink “Save Changes” worked instantly for me.

  13. Hugo Nascimento says

    Hello guys,

    I have the same issue with a client blog. i’m trying to build a custom form inside post page and when I enable the custom permalinks, the form cannot be accessed.

    When I change permalinks to default, it works out! :/

    Really strange. :/

  14. victor says

    I have this problem .I can’t login to my WordPress dashboard, each time I try to it keeps giving me Error 404 not found. please help me fix this.

  15. Dont Ask Real Name says

    Your tip was a life saver. All our posts were just not visible. Your tip helped a lot.

    What i did:

    Updated .htaccess set CHMOD to 666 instead of 660

    Clicked – > Settings -> Permalinks

    Clicked on Defaults and clicked Save Changes

    Again,

    Clicked on Post name and clicked on Save Changes. (since i used custom url that’s why)

    You just saved me a ton of headache…

  16. Clive Wales says

    That was a real life-saver – thought I’d totally screwed up a replacement site I’ve been working on, after trying to be clever with an .htaccess redirection. Thank you!

  17. Bill says

    I like the permalink structure of my posts and they seem to work. I have been using the same structure for several years.
    However when I go to Settings–>Permalinks the actual structure is not even listed as one of the options available anymore.
    Is this a problem?

  18. Emily says

    Hi I am having this problem and to be honest, I feel sick because I don’t know what to do. I am a novice really and scared I am going to kill my website more than I already have.
    Can someone please tell me what my custom permalink should look like and what I SHOULD hav in my .htaacess file? Right now it seems blank?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Go to Settings » Permalinks choose a permalink structure that you like and then save your changes. Open your .htaccess file and you will notice that WordPress has automatically updated it. If it is blank and your chosen permalink structure is not working, then you can manually add this code into your .htaccess file:

      # BEGIN WordPress

      RewriteEngine On
      RewriteBase /
      RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
      RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

      # END WordPress

      Admin

  19. Viktor says

    Yes, that was the solution! Thanks a lot. My hosting service changed these settings as I changed the URL to custom error pages but just clicking on the permalink settings fixed that.

  20. Matthew Shelton says

    “Go to Settings » Permalinks, and simply click on Save Changes button” – fantastic, that worked right away – thanks a lot!!

  21. Gretchen Louise says

    What about for a single post permalink that got changed and somehow created an internal redirect, and now it cannot be changed back without creating a 404 error? Trying to troubleshoot an issue for a client and wondering where those internal redirects are stored and where in the world to clear them. Thank you.

  22. Arpee Lazaro says

    i just updated t he permalink structures are pictured in this solution and it worked like a charm. thanks!

  23. Attiq Haroon says

    I tried the solutions you mentioned in you post bhut it didn’t seems to be working. What happened actually is that I wanted to add a rule to .htaccess file so I downloaded that files from FTP and edited it and uploaded that file again replacing the original one, and then the problem popped up. I have tried a couple of fixes such as deleting and putting new .htacces with default code, removing .htacces file, etc. The only fix that is making the posts accessible is to set the permalink to default option. This makes the posts to work but it can not be a permanent Fix as it is not recommended as an SEO prespective
    Please try to find a working solution on that problem

    • WPBeginner Staff says

      backup your .htaccess file. Then delete the one from your server. Now log into WordPress admin area and go to Settings -> Permalinks choose your desired permalink structure and hit save changes.

      After that connect to FTP and see if WordPress has created a new .htaccess file and it is not blank.

  24. Tim Topham says

    Hey guys – I recently received an email from Google crawl as I suddenly had a heap 500+ of lost links. It seems that at some stage I must have changed the permalink structure so that lots of the links on old posts have the post date and then post name where as they now just have the post name.

    Before I go mad trying to fix 500 links in my articles manually, is there an easy way to update the hyperlinks in articles when this sort of thing happens?

    Cheers,
    Tim.

  25. Cindy says

    thank you! My sites were hacked and all internal pages showed a 404 error. saving the permalink settings fixed it! cheers!

  26. Joe Cutroni says

    Hi all, I’ve scoured the web to find help to resolve my issue, but
    for the life of me cannot get anything to work. Starting just a couple
    of weeks ago, all of my back end pages (home page was fine) started
    turning out 404 errors on them.

    The permalink that I have always used is “Custom structure” (/%category%/%postname%/)…here are some things that I’ve tried:

    1 . Gone into my permalinks, clicked “save settings”, and that method provides a temporary fix, maybe for an hour or two, then the 404 errors return on all secondary pages. I’ve also set my permalinks to a different option, such as “Default”, but still get 404 errors shortly after.

    2. Completely deleted my htaccess.php file, then went back and saved permalink settings…less than an hour later, 404 errors returned.

    3. Commented out this line of code in my function.php file, also completely removed it altogether:

    “$wp_rewrite->flush_rules();”. That didn’t do anything. I’ve tried
    using both “//” and “#” before it and tested…still get 404 errors.

    4. De-activated all of my plugins to see it one of them was the culprit,
    but after a short time, my 404 errors resumed while none of the plugins were active.

    Like I said, this issue just start a few weeks ago. I use Securi
    Security and had them scan my site for any malware, etc…and the site
    is clean.

    Can someone PLEASE help me with this? Would bigtime appreciate it!

    • Kyle says

      Hey Joe,

      Did you ever find a workable solution for this? I’ve gone through the same issues that you listed.

      • David says

        Hey Guys!
        Did you find a solution to the returning 404-error as listed above by JOE CUTRONI?
        I’m dealing with the same issue?

        Some Feedback would be awesome!
        Thank you!

        Greetings from Germany,
        David

  27. Katie says

    This is the problem I am having. I moved from WordPress.com to .org and I am at my wits end. I understand the directions that say got admin—> settings —> permalinks. In fact, I remember when I was setting this up that I messed with that particular setting. Here’s my issues: WHERE do I find this admin–> settings–> permalinks?? Is it on my host, in the cpanel? Is it back on WP.com, or if it’s WP.org? And if it’s on WP.org I don’t have a clue how to get to all the admin features of my blog now. When I log in, it shows me my personal profile and allows me to edit it. But not any blog administration. I am at a loss and really losing my head.

    • Gabriel says

      If I’m understanding you correctly, just type in the domain name that you activated the wp.org tool and follow it up with “/wp-admin” (for instance “www.example.com/wp-admin”)log in and on the lower left hand side you would find the settings option.

  28. Iris Fritschi-Cussens says

    THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart! I had to delete my .htaccess file due to a hack and then just when I thought everything was fine again nothing worked apart from the home page. Pressing Save Changes on the permalinks solved it in one.

  29. Thai says

    Thanks for the post! But sadly I tried these with on the local and nothing worked.. Any other tips?

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