WordPress 2.7 Permalink Issue and Fix

by David Porter on January 3, 2009 · 10 comments

in How To Fix Wordpress

WordPress recently released their latest update, making it 2.7.

I was (and am) excited about it because it’s a whole new look and feel for the admin backend of things and they have some very cool added features to.

Stuff like…

  • Install new plugins right from your WordPress install without using FTP
  • Automatic WordPress core updates right from within WordPress
  • New “QuickPress” posting dashboard widget
  • New admin design
  • New tools section to make WordPress faster

Like I said, there are some cool new things in WordPress 2.7.

The new backend alone makes it worth the upgrade and all of the other added stuff is even more of a bonus for everyone.  There are a lot new changes and all of them are very cool.

But there’s one “bug” that will be hurting a lot of people!

WordPress 2.7 Permalink Issue

The new WordPress has a big issue with permalinks after you upgrade if your server isn’t setup the way the script files are needed.

This is what happen to me.

I have a few different blogs online on different topics (WordPress, Self Help and some others), and I’m also setting up a whole new blog network where other people can blog on topics and get paid for it, so I try and stay up on WordPress as much as possible when I can.

So when I saw the the new version out and saw all of the changes that came with it, I jumped on upgrading one of my blogs so I could give it a go.

I went and installed the newest version (2.7) and when I was done, I went and started clicking links to make sure everything still worked correctly.

Well, I found that things were not working correctly.  Permalinks to be exact.

I kept getting 404 pages when ever I would click a post title.  I did everything.

  1. Turned off all plugins and tried
  2. Made sure my .htaccess file was writable and redid the permalink section
  3. Changed my theme back to default to see if it was a theme issue
  4. Change my permalinks back to original and back again to what I wanted

None of this worked!

So I did some searching in WordPress forums for help, and found nothing helpful at all.  There were a few people talking about similar issues, but not the exact same thing and no solution.

I finally went to Google and did a search on the issue and was taken back to the WordPress forums but this time to a post on this exact issue.

What Was the Solution?

Well, it turns out the new WordPress version and PHP’s ‘magic_quotes_sybase’ don’t work well together.

I tried turning it off in .htaccess with a few different types of commands, no luck.  Things actually got worst sometimes shooting up 500 internal errors do to htaccess file stuff.

Finally, I went to my WHM (server management section) and changed my PHP configuration file to turn off the magic_quotes_sybase and all was fixed.

NOW – the problems is this…

…what if one of my other websites needed magic_quotes_sybase on?  What if I had to choose between one site working and another not working because of this.

I know the good people over at WordPress are doing their best to make things work and work right, and their doing a GREAT job to.  I just can’t help but wonder what other people are out there doing with this same issue.

See, if you don’t backup your WordPress DB (always recommended), you could end up screwing yourself into having a WordPress install being down for a few days, if not longer, till you figure out the issue and find the solution.

And most people out there don’t have the resources to go making server configuration changes either.

Anyway, I figured it out – fixed it and all is good now.

WordPress 2.7 Permalink Issue Fix Re-cap

  1. Try and turn magic_quotes (magic_quotes_sybase) off in your .htaccess file so no other sites are effected by it
  2. If that doesn’t work, turn off the magic_quotes_sybase in your PHP configuration file

If you can’t do this yourself, or don’t know how to, either ask your hosting provider to do it for you, find someone on a site like Guru.com or Google it.

I hope this helps a few people with the same issue I had.

Related posts:

  1. htaccess Rules for WordPress Permalinks
  2. Moving your WordPress Site? Don’t forget hidden files.
  3. Turning Off WordPress Post Revisions
  4. The Hottest WordPress Theme on the Market just got Hotter
About The Author: David Porter has been blogging online using Wordpress for over 3 years now and has been testing, tweaking and improving on the system as he moved forward in his blogging experiences.

{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

Fernando Tellado January 4, 2009 at 6:22 pm

Very good tip, thanks ;)

By the way, your feed isn’t working, there’s an issue with some line with the xml format, need a check or change the redirection at feedburner :roll:

Reply

Fernando Tellado January 5, 2009 at 2:49 am

We aren’t free of errors David :D

It looks fine now :)

Reply

Brian January 20, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Thanks for the info…

I’m in the process of launching a new blog. Using WP 2.7.

I just installed a new plugin and one of the prerequisites is to use anything but default permalinks. So, I went into the admin portion of my site and changed my permalinks to one of the other options. Saved the setting change, and BAM… No other pages work. Change the setting back to default and everything is good again…

In regards to your solution (thought it might solve my issue), I looked at the .htaccess file in my root directory. I see nothing pertaining to magic_quotes. Am I missing something? Also, which file is the PHP configuration file?

Sorry – pretty new to wordpress. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Brian

Reply

David Porter January 21, 2009 at 2:01 am

Hi Brian,

Well, the magic_quotes stuff mentioned in the post above wouldn’t be in your .htaccess file by default. It’s something you would have to add yourself manually.

FIRST, I would like you to try something for me if you could though.

If you can, please FTP into your blog domain and change the permissions on your .htaccess file to 777 (all boxes checked). Then, go back into your blog admin and change your permalink settings again and see if it works. If it does, change the .htaccess file permissions back to 644 (rows down left to right – 2 checked, 1 checked, 1 checked).

Come back here and post again letting me know if it worked for you.

If you don’t know how to change file permissions, you should be able to do with whatever file manger your hosting service provides, or be able to get your hosting service to make the change as a temporary thing for you.

Let me know how it goes!

David Porter

Thanks for the info…

I’m in the process of launching a new blog. Using WP 2.7.

I just installed a new plugin and one of the prerequisites is to use anything but default permalinks. So, I went into the admin portion of my site and changed my permalinks to one of the other options. Saved the setting change, and BAM… No other pages work. Change the setting back to default and everything is good again…

In regards to your solution (thought it might solve my issue), I looked at the .htaccess file in my root directory. I see nothing pertaining to magic_quotes. Am I missing something? Also, which file is the PHP configuration file?

Sorry – pretty new to wordpress. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Brian

Reply

David Porter January 5, 2009 at 12:19 am

@Fernando Tellado,

Thanks for commenting and thanks for the heads up.

Not a good thing to have an error on a wordpress blog when the blogs title is “Wordpress Master” :-)

I’ll get on it right away. Looks like it might be a Google Feeds thing though, but I’ll find out.

Thanks again.

UPDATE:
Looks like I figured it out (rss not working). Was a plugin issue. Thanks again.

Reply

brad January 29, 2009 at 10:20 am

I have the same problem with a new install, permalinks show file not found and my magic quotes are set to off ??? still no luck

Reply

David Porter January 31, 2009 at 5:36 am

Hi Brad,

Make sure your .htaccess in your blogs main directory has write permissions (777). If not, change it to have the 77 permissions using FTP, make your permalink changes and then change the .htaccess file permissions back to 644.

Wordpress need to be able to write to this file for your permalinks to work correctly.

I hope this helps, let me know.

David Porter

I have the same problem with a new install, permalinks show file not found and my magic quotes are set to off ??? still no luck

Reply

David Porter January 5, 2009 at 2:08 pm

@Fernando Tellado,

Yes this is true.

It was a plugin that was causing the issue (Feedburner feed stats & submit your site, plugins). Was a good excuse to clean up all of the plugins I wasn’t really using though :-)

Thanks again.

Reply

Vikas July 27, 2009 at 3:32 pm

Thanks David. I was also facing the same problem on two of my wordpress sites. You need to add tjuts one line in the .htaccess file “php_flag magic_quotes_sybase Off” and the problem is solved. Gr8!!

Reply

Evan November 16, 2012 at 8:19 am

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