How to Fix 404 Error on Single Items Error

Error 404 Not Found is one of the most common and harmless errors, but nevertheless, it can be frustrating and annoying for first-time users to be introduced to such an interface. For a better user experience, you can create and design beautiful and engaging 404 pages to present your brand or navigate users to another page with Neuron Builder. Nevertheless, when a 404 error keeps occurring on your single pages, you should be able to fix it easily. To fix the returning 404 error in WordPress, here are the most common solutions. 

Reset WordPress Permalinks 

The first and the most common solution to fix the error 404 on Single Items is to reset your permalinks in WordPress. This usually does and trick and it's the simplest approach out of all. From the WordPress Dashboard, click on Settings > Permalinks. 

From here all you need to do is click on Save Changes. No need to configure any setting. By simply clicking on the button will update your permalinks settings even if you don't make any changes. This is also good for refreshing the rewrite rules for pretty permalinks. Once you click on Save Changes, refresh the page you kept getting the error 404 and see if the issue is resolved. If not please continue with other fixes.  

Restore Your .htaccess File

The next solution requires a bit more technical knowledge, because if resetting your permalinks did not work, then you will need to restore your .htaccess file. This file controls how WordPress interacts with the server and how the permalinks are generated for your website. To restore the .htaccess file you will need to:

1. Log in to your FTP Client account or to your cPanel account. 
2. If you are on cPanel, from the File Manager, locate the public_html folder
3. There should be the .htaccess file, click on it
   

   

4. Once the file is opened, copy the current content of the file and paste them somewhere for safekeeping

5. Replace the file's content with the following lines 

   # 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
   	

6. This is the default .htacces file for WordPress, once you're done replacing the content click to Save the file. 

Restoring the file will also restore the permalinks on your website, therefore if you are using a custom permalink structure or have changed it completely you will need to restore that too. Just like the first solution, from the WordPress Dashboard, click on Settings > Permalinks and change it to whatever you were using before. Refresh the page, to see if the error has been resolved. 

Set Up 301 Redirects For Moved or Renamed Content

If you are seeing the 404 error in certain pieces of content this can be caused due to two factors

• You've changed the URL Slug for that content or
• You've moved that piece of content manually, either you've deleted the existing post and pasted it to a new post. 

If you do have content that's been moved or renamed thus the URL doesn't exist anymore. To fix this issue you can use the Redirection plugin, a free and highly capable tool to help you quickly set up the redirects you need. 

1. Search for the plugin, install and activate it from the WordPress dashboard
2. Once the plugin is installed and activated you can locate it under the WP Dashboard > Tools > Redirection 
3. Enter the 404 page URL in the Source URL box and the new location of the content in the Target URL box 
4. Click on the Add Redirect, and go back to your site to check whether or not the error 404 will return. 
   

   

Disable Plugins 

If none of the methods work, you can also check whether or not a plugin is at fault due to incompatibility issues. Plugins, in particular, can have bugs or incompatibility issues that prevent the site from loading. You will simply need to deactivate each plugin at a time and check your pages which encounter the 404 error each time if the issue is resolved. For that, log in to your WordPress Dashboard, click on Plugins > Installed Plugins. Click on the Deactivate button on each of the plugins one by one.

Check your pages to see whether or not the 404 error is still present. If the issue is resolved upon a plugin deactivation, this means the plugin might have incompatibility issues. In such cases, please contact the plugin's support team to notify them of the issue.