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[Resolved] Translated pages show 404 error.

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem:
The client was experiencing 404 errors on newly published translated pages and products with incorrect or inconsistent permalinks.
Solution:
We recommended checking if the permalinks 'slugs' were correctly translated using the String Translation. It was suggested to reset these URLs to their default settings and then properly translate them. Additionally, we advised deactivating all plugins except WPML and switching to a default WordPress theme to identify any conflicts causing the issue. If the problem persisted, the next step was to create a staging site to further diagnose and resolve the issue without affecting the live site. After these steps, if issues with permalinks still occurred, it was necessary to ensure that slugs for different post types and categories were unique to avoid conflicts.

If this solution does not resolve your issue, or if it seems outdated or irrelevant to your case, we highly recommend opening a new support ticket. Please check related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verify the version of the permanent fix, and confirm that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. For further assistance, you can also contact us directly at the WPML support forum.

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This topic contains 4 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by Ilyes 5 months ago.

Assisted by: Ilyes.

Author Posts
July 10, 2024 at 1:45 pm #15928389

tomZ-5

Background of the issue:
Translations are successfully published of new pages, but the permalinks seems to be a problem. It leads to a 404 pages. It is happening on these pages:

hidden link
hidden link

Also these product pages are effected, but they seem to work even though all translated links are different (not showing correctly and no consistent translated title):

hidden link
hidden link
July 11, 2024 at 4:13 pm #15936516

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello,

Thank you for your patience,

I have recorded this video for you to explain the issue and how to solve it : hidden link

So to summaries, you shouldn't have identical slugs for different post types and Categories, this is prone to issues for both WP and WPML,

I have changed all the slugs to be unique, and you should be able to solve this if you change either the category slug or the page slug, so it won't have a match.

Best,
July 11, 2024 at 9:01 pm #15937737
tomZ-5

Thanks so much, that was a clear explanation and it works! Still wonder though how it could be possible that it did not conflict before, as also both the existing page and product categories were setup the same with 'e-bikes' and 'carbon fiber' as the names.

Next question was the speed of the website and backend. I've contacted Divi support and they concluded that the builder itself is not slow but WPML and the translated content may somehow cause conflict or ended up using a lot of processing/data/storage space. Can you figure out what causes this? Also, there is a huge error log available in WPML error logs. Anything we can solve from there to speed up this website and backend again?

New threads created by Ilyes and linked to this one are listed below:

https://wpml.org/forums/topic/performance-issue-26/
July 11, 2024 at 9:47 pm #15937857

tomZ-5

Edit 1: Now I have the same problem but just in the English language. But this didn't happen before. If I try to do the same trick, I'll mess up the 'e-bikes' shop page (doesn't seem to accept the 'en' edit in the slug)

Edit 2: After just resaving the general permalink structure in the wordpress settings everything was fine again.
July 13, 2024 at 10:21 am #15947054

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello,

Thank you for the follow-up, I'm glad you found a solution for the permalink issue,

As part of our support policy and to keep our forum easy to access for our other users, we recommend handling one issue per ticket/chat.

For that, I have created the ticket below where we can focus on the performance issue :

https://wpml.org/forums/topic/performance-issue-26/

I suggest you reply to that ticket with your error log, as it may be related to the performance issue,

You can then mark this initial ticket as resolved,

Thank you for your comprehension,